Problem getting in Flex Effects: Migration from Flex3 to Flex4 - apache-flex

I am using Flex4. I want to get some animation effects in my project.
I used <s:Wipe> but this doesn't work, however with same type of code, <mx:WipeLeft> worked.
However I dont want to use <mx> code, if its more-generic spark code is available in Flex4.
My both type of codes are:
MX Code- (working code)
<mx:WipeLeft id="wLeft" duration="1500" target="{imgSinglePage}"/>
Spark code- (Not working)
<s:Wipe id="wLeft" duration="1500" direction="left" target="{imgSinglePage}"/>

Effects can work with transitions using Flex 4's state system, or can be triggered by events in components.
Specified in a declarative way:
<!--- Fade effects for showing / hiding elements -->
<fx:Declarations>
<s:Parallel id="fadeInEffect">
<s:Fade alphaFrom="0"
alphaTo="1" />
</s:Parallel>
<s:Parallel id="fadeOutEffect">
<s:Fade alphaFrom="1"
alphaTo="0" />
</s:Parallel>
</fx:Declarations>
<!-- Image -->
<s:Image showEffect="{fadeInEffect}"
hideEffect="{fadeOutEffect}" />
If this does not answer your question, please provide code that uses the effect you have referenced.

There is nothing in your declaration of the effects themselves that is causing your problem. Since you didn't include your actual invocation code, I can only guess that you are attempting to use an effects trigger (eg. rollOverEffect="wLeft") to execute the Spark effect.
The Spark effects can only be invoked by calling their play() method. So in your case, you would use
... rollOver="wLeft.end();wLeft.play();" ...
on the relevant component.
Here's the official Adobe description.
And here's a discussion on SO of the same problem.

Related

Funny behaviour from Adobe Flex Transitions (2)

No matter what I do, my transitions won't work as expected. I'll explain the issues and then place the code at the bottom.
There are 4 States in my application.
goButton is present only in "State1" and "State2".
State1 and State2 are nearly the same, but the y property of the goButton is diffrent in each. So I've made a little transition that moves the Button back and forth. Good so far.
However, both "State1" and "State2" can also be Transitioned to "State3". But there's no goButton in "State3", so I've used the <s:Fade> and the <s:RemoveAction> effects to get rid of it.
The Transition from "State1" to "State3" works ok, but the Transition from "State2" to "State3" doesn't.
When I attempt to call the transition from "State2" to "State3" the goButton flickers/flashes quickly back to the position where it was in "State1" and only the the Transition to "State3" actually takes place.
this is my goButton
<s:Button id="goButton" includeIn="State1,State2" x="319" y="212" width="33" height="33"
click="goButton_clickHandler()"
icon="#Embed('file:///C:/Users/Felipe/Downloads/1317358341_magnifier_medium.png')"
toolTip="go"
x.State2="319" y.State2="275"/>
and these are the relevant Transitions:
<s:Transition fromState="State1" toState="State3" >
<s:Sequence>
<s:Fade duration="700" targets="{[searchLabel,searchTextInput,inLabel,inDropDownList,goButton,addNewLessonButton]}" />
<s:RemoveAction targets="{[searchLabel,searchTextInput,inLabel,inDropDownList,goButton,addNewLessonButton]}" />
<s:AddAction targets="{[lessonsDataGrid,backButton]}" />
<s:Fade duration="700" targets="{[lessonsDataGrid,backButton]}" />
</s:Sequence>
</s:Transition>
<s:Transition fromState="State2" toState="State3" >
<s:Sequence>
<s:Fade duration="700" targets="{[searchLabel,searchTextInput,inLabel,inDropDownList,tagsLabel,tagsTextInput,goButton,addNewLessonButton]}" />
<s:RemoveAction targets="{[searchLabel,searchTextInput,inLabel,inDropDownList,tagsLabel,tagsTextInput,goButton,addNewLessonButton]}" />
<s:AddAction targets="{[lessonsDataGrid,backButton]}" />
<s:Fade duration="700" targets="{[lessonsDataGrid,backButton]}" />
</s:Sequence>
</s:Transition>
My guess is that Flex always (don't ask me why) moves the component back to its original position before performing a Transition. I've tried a different version of this app in which I set the x and y properties of my goButton to what they are in "State2" and then set x.State1 = something else and y.State1 = something else and guess what happens? I get the exact inverse problem! Transition from "State2" to "State3" is ok but the Transition from "State1" to "State3" doesn't work, as the goButton flickers back to its original position (now it is the position in "State2") and only then does the Transition takes place.
Man this is driving me crazy.
__________________//______________________________
__________________ //____________________________
EDIT
I've added a link to the app >>>>HERE<<<<<< You can see the issue by selecting the option 'selected tags' and then clicking the 'goButton' . You'll see what I'm talking about. View source is available!!!
It looks like it's looking for an x,y for the goButton in State3. If you don't set one explicitly, it falls back to the default. Adding
x.State3="{this.x}" y.State3="{this.x}"
to <s:Button id="goButton" ... /> fixed it for me.
I think you're making this too complicated. Just set includeIn="state1,state3" for the button. No need for any add action. Then create one Fade transition that sets the goButton as its target. The Spark fade is smart enough to figure out how to handle that situation without further help from you.
Check out http://polygeek.com/2304_flex_simple-flex-4-component-checkedunchecked for more details.
>>>LL<<<<
OK I think I've singled out this behaviour and do believe it's a BUG or GLITCH.
I'll see if anyone has anything to add and if nobody shows up I'll file a bug report.
Steps to reproduce:
create a button that's present in two different states, in different x,y coordinates. For example, your button will have a value for x and for y and you'll have to set its position in the other state, something like x.State2 = something and y.State2=something
now create a transition from State2 (if State1 is your original State) to a third State called State3.
the transition should have a <s:Sequence> sequence of steps, preferably involving RemoveActions and Fades, like the ones I've used above.

Get current target values while effect executing

At a certain point in an effects execution i would like to execute some code.
Say for example that i have a move effect on objectA and half way through this effect i want to make objectB disapear.
Is there any functionality built in to the spark effects framework to do this or do i need to implement the effect myself by hand?
Short of using a timer, I don't think you can with the effect library. However, I recommend you look at TweenMax; it's an amazing animation library that is fast, efficient and has a lot of really cool options (like what you just said).
Could you use a composite effect like Parallel with a startDelay on the second effect?
<s:Parallel>
<s:Move target="{target1}" xBy="100" duration="1000" />
<s:Fade target="{target2}" alphaTo="0" startDelay="500" duration="0" />
</s:Parallel>

Weird display when scolling images inside List component in Flex

I have a list that displays photos like them:
<s:List id="thumnPhotosList"
dataProvider="{_model.photoAlbumToCreate.photos}"
height="450"
itemRenderer="PhotoRenderer" >
<s:layout>
<s:TileLayout orientation="columns"
requestedRowCount="4"
requestedColumnCount="3" />
</s:layout>
</s:List>
and PhotoRenderer has a code like this:
......
<mx:Image source="{_model.url + theAlbumPhoto.thumbPhotoURL}"
visible="{theAlbumPhoto.ready}"
maintainAspectRatio="true"
maxWidth="{Constants.DEFAULT_ALBUM_PHOTO_WIDTH}" maxHeight="{Constants.DEFAULT_ALBUM_PHOTO_HEIGHT}" />
........
Which works fine except when the number of photos get high and the scroll bar appears it starts behaving weirdly: it start showing photos different than the ones it supposed to and if I scroll back to beginning and scroll again to new photos other ones appears sometimes the correct ones and sometime not. Not sure how to resolve this, any ideas? you can also recommend different way than using s:List if that makes it easier.
I had the same problem with text List, i think its padding issue, organize the pading for all components it may help.
As I couldn't figure out what the problem was and couldn't reproduce it on stand alone application. I came up with the following code that solved the issue:
<s:Scroller id="photoScroller"
width="100%"
visible="{_model.photoAlbumToCreateOrUpdate.photos.length > 0}"
horizontalScrollPolicy="off" verticalScrollPolicy="auto"
skinClass="com.lal.skins.PhotoAlbumScrollerSkin"
top="50" bottom="0">
<s:DataGroup id="thumnPhotosList"
dataProvider="{_model.photoAlbumToCreateOrUpdate.photos}"
itemRenderer="AlbumPhotoThumbRenderer" >
<s:layout>
<s:TileLayout orientation="rows"
requestedRowCount="4"
requestedColumnCount="4" />
</s:layout>
</s:DataGroup>
</s:Scroller>
I had this same issue with an Image component in a custom item renderer I was using in a TileList. I fixed it without really knowing how, but the problem was the source property of the Image component in the item renderer.
The idea with item renderers is to use the data variable to access the item feeding the renderer. What do the _model and theAlbumPhoto variables refer to in your renderer? What I ended up doing was changing the source property to something more like data.image_path, and it decided to start working.
If you're happy with your solution, hopefully this can at least be of help to someone else.

How to prevent components from rendering in Flex

Is there a way to prevent a component from rendering in Flex (to save memory or processing power)?
I tried doing something like:
<components:AddNewItemGroup id="addItemGroup"
visible="false"
enabled="false"
horizontalCenter="0" bottom="0" />
I noticed that the component gets rendered but it's just not visible or functional.
If you want to prevent a component from being rendered, you need to remove it from the display list using the removeChild method in Actionscript.
How about setting "includeInLayout='false'" too ? The doc says it will not draw the component ... but maybe it will still "render" it ...
http://livedocs.adobe.com/flex/3/html/help.html?content=size_position_4.html
For the desired effect, use:
<components:AddNewItemGroup
id="addItemGroup"
visible="false"
includeInLayout="false"
enabled="false"
horizontalCenter="0" bottom="0" />

How to bind Flex Effects to the effects target properties?

I'm trying to reuse effects. To achieve this, i was hoping that i could bind some of the effect's properties to the effect's target. Here's what i wanted to do:
<mx:transitions>
<mx:Transition toState="Ready">
<mx:Parallel targets="{[b1, b2, b3]}" perElementOffset="200" duration="500">
<mx:Move xFrom="{target.x-100}" xBy="100">
<!-- possibly a fade effect too -->
</mx:Parellel>
</mx:Transition>
</mx:transitions>
<mx:VBox>
<mx:Button id="b1"/>
<mx:Button id="b2"/>
<mx:Button id="b3"/>
</mx:VBox>
The above code assumes, a state change on application createComplete to Ready state.
In my futile attempt with the above code, i tried to create 1 effect that would animate the entrance of 3 buttons all laid out using VBox. I'm (trying to) avoiding 2 things:
Absolute layout hence hand coded coordinates. I want to exploit the containers.
Effect code duplication
Results:
- Compiler complains target is not defined. I've tried to put whole list of ideas into that field but to no avail. I've tried:
{this.target.x}
{effectId.target.x}
{propertyThatReturnsTheObject.x}
Can this be done? Thanks in advance.
if you give the Move Effect an id, can you bind to {moveId.target}. Its not clear that your second case is it...
I suspect the compiler is looking for target in a different scope to the one you think it is...
Certainly, target isn't a bindable attribute, so this may be academic anyway.

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