Custom component troubles..

Alright so I've been fiddling around with custom components recently, and things have been going a bit slowly... but I've finally got the behaviour I'm looking for.. except for two odd things..

When a movieclip with an associated class (which is where I draw the UI of the component) is turned into a compiled clip and an instance of this compiled clip is put on the stage, the clip can't really be selected. The properties show up in the component inspector and it can be moved around with the arrow keys, but the blue selection box doesn't show up, and the clip can't be resized or dragged around.

I found that when I put an invisible shape in the (otherwise blank) container movieclip, the clip can be selected in the normal way. My component, however, changes size depending on the properties chosen in the properties panel. I thought to myself "oh well, I'll just convert that invisible shape to a symbol and change its size in actionscript."

No such luck.

First of all, the new area that the clip covers doesn't register, only the previous area. Second, if you do that, exporting the movie throws an error, saying the clip cannot be created. Does anyone know of a way to make the whole thing selectable, no matter what?

Second, when the component is placed on the stage, only 60 pixels of the clip are rendered, when 115 are needed (for this setting). Why is this, and can it be remedied?

I've googled and searched this forum and a couple of others and I cannot find the answer anywhere!

I would really appreciate it if anyone could shed some light on this problem.

Thanks,
Mavrisa