flex prevent selection state on spark list - apache-flex

Question

I have an ItemRenderer in which the selected state should be disabled (I'm using the renderer states and I don't have a selected state).
The problem is that the list (spark) resets the item renderer state upon click even though I don't have a "selected" state.
I want to fully prevent this behavior but I don't know how.
My renderer has autoDrawBackground set to false but it has to be enabled (although enabled=false fixes this issue)
Also, the renderer has several children including a list of its own.
Setting mouseEnabled="false" on the renderer fixes the renderer itself but not its children, and I need some of the children to be mouse enabled.
Edit:
Following is an excerpt from my item renderer:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<s:ItemRenderer xmlns:fx="http://ns.adobe.com/mxml/2009"
xmlns:mx="library://ns.adobe.com/flex/mx"
xmlns:s="library://ns.adobe.com/flex/spark"
width="100%" autoDrawBackground="false">
<s:states>
<s:State name="normal" />
<s:State name="suitable" />
<s:State name="mine" />
<s:State name="deleted" />
</s:states>
<s:Rect id="rect" top="0" right="0" bottom="0" left="0">
<s:fill>
<s:SolidColor id="background"
alpha=".8" alpha.deleted=".4"
color="0xff0000" color.suitable="0x00ff00" color.mine="0x0000ff" />
</s:fill>
</s:Rect>
<s:Label id="name" left="4" top="4" right="40" />
<s:List id="myList" left="4" top="40" right="4"
contentBackgroundAlpha="0" borderVisible="false" horizontalScrollPolicy="off">
<s:layout>
<s:VerticalLayout gap="3" paddingBottom="4" requestedMinRowCount="2" />
</s:layout>
</s:List>
</s:ItemRenderer>
Second Edit:
I had the same problem with the mouse hover state but that seems to have a workaround:
override protected function set hovered(value:Boolean) : void
{
// do nothing (prevent current state from changing to "hovered" state)
}

Answer 1

I'm unclear if you want to prevent an item from being selected; or just prevent the visual properties that go along with an item being selected.
To handle the visual aspects; I'd try to override the getCurrentRendererState() method. Something like this:
override protected function getCurrentRendererState():String{
if (selected && hasState("selected"))){
return "normal"; // or whatever state you want it to be
}
if (selected && down && hasState("downAndSelected")){
return "normal"; // or whatever state you want it to be
}
super.getCurrentRendererState()
}
In theory, this should prevent your renderer from ever going into a selected state.