Actionscript 2: Catching when an instance of a Class that extends MovieClip is made visible

You just don't get blog post titles as precise as that every day!

I have been telling a story today about trying to catch when a movieclip's _visible property is set.  First, I showed how we create classes that extend MovieClip.  Next, I described the problems that I am having writing a set and get function for _visible.  Third, I showed how MovieClipProxy could be used on a simple MovieClip to catch the setting of _visible.  Now, I am going to finish the story and show how it can be done for a class like ubSquare.

The first step is to make a slight adjustment to MovieClipProxy.   Its constructor is written to either take 3 parameters and create an empty MovieClip or 4 parameters and attach a movieclip from the library.  I changed it so that if it is sent more, it will use the first parameter to create the movieclip.

In the first post's example, we created the ubSquare using:

this.mySquare_ubS = ubSquare.create(this, "mySquare_mc", {_x:50, _y:75, _side:10});

So if we change the constructor of MovieClipProxy to read:

 function MovieClipProxy(a,b,c,d,e) {
  var mc, mc2;
  if (arguments.length == 3) {
   mc = __initEmpty(a,b,c);
  } else if (arguments.length == 4){
   mc = __initAttached(a,b,c,d);
  } else {
   mc = a(b,c,d,e);
  }
  __applyPrototyped(mc);
 }

Then we can invoke it with:

 var mcp:MovieClipProxy = new MovieClipProxy(ubSquare.create, container, instanceName, initObj, depth);

and the created MovieClip will now be a ubSquare.

But, ubSquare had a side property and a scale method that are not handled by MovieClipProxy.  I can create a ubSquareProxy Class

import edu.clips.test.MovieClipProxy;
import edu.clips.test.ubSquare;

class edu.clips.test.ubSquareProxy extends MovieClipProxy {
 
 public static function create(container:MovieClip, instanceName:String,
         initObj:Object, depth:Number) {
  if (depth == undefined) depth = container.getNextHighestDepth();
  var mcp:MovieClipProxy = new MovieClipProxy(ubSquare.create, container, instanceName, initObj, depth);

  //define all the ubSquare properties, methods and functions
  mcp["scale"] = function(newScale:Number){
   trace("in ubSquareProxy.scale "+ mcp._mc);
   mcp._mc.scale(newScale);
  }
  mcp.addProperty("side", 
      function(){trace("addProperty getter");return this._mc.side}, 
      function(newSide){trace("addProperty setter");this._mc.side = newSide});
  return mcp;
 }
}

and create it using:

this.mySquare_ubS = ubSquareProxy.create(this, "mySquare_mc", {_x:50, _y:75, _side:10});

Now the questions that I am left with are these:

1. Is it worth the time to apply this method to my ubPod class with 80 documented properties, 23 methods and 7 event handlers just to capture when the one MovieClip property, _visible, changes?
2. Is there a way to use __proto__ or prototype or constructor to access the MovieClip's setter for _visible and just change that to broadcast an event?
3. Should ubSquareProxy extend MovieClipProxy, MovieClip or nothing?