Not sure if my title accurately describes what I'm trying to do, but basically I've created a new NativeWindow as follows (using an example from the Adobe NativeWindow documentation http://help.adobe.com/en_US/FlashPlatform/reference/actionscript/3/flash/display/NativeWindow.html?filter_flex=4.1&filter_flashplayer=10.1&filter_air=2#minSize):
var windowOptions:NativeWindowInitOptions = new NativeWindowInitOptions();
windowOptions.systemChrome = NativeWindowSystemChrome.STANDARD;
windowOptions.type = NativeWindowType.NORMAL;
var newWindow:NativeWindow = new NativeWindow(windowOptions);
newWindow.stage.scaleMode = StageScaleMode.NO_SCALE;
newWindow.stage.align = StageAlign.TOP_LEFT;
newWindow.bounds = new Rectangle(100, 100, 800, 800);
newWindow.activate();
However, now that I have my new window, I want to close the old window and make the new window the active NativeApplication, basically transferring all control over to the new one. Any idea how to do this? All help greatly appreciated.
Edit:
For anyone who is interested, and thanks to the answers provided, here's what I now do. Just create an mxml file using
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<mx:Window
xmlns:mx="http://www.adobe.com/2006/mxml"
...
>
Call this MyWindow.mxml or whatever, and then in the main controller create an instance of this using
private var myWindow:MyWindow = new MyWindow.
You can then set the height width minimizable and maximisable attributes accordingly, like myWindow.width = 400. To open the window you can then do either window.open(true) or window.visible = false; window.open(true) - the latter making the window invisible but available for use.
Jeff's pretty much got the answer in his comment, but he's got way more karma than me so I'll comment as an answer ;)
If you look at your AIR -app.xml file, it has elements for whether the application is initially visible, etc.
What you want to do, is make it initially invisible. In fact you don't really want it to have any visible presence at all. What it will do though is spawn a Native Window the way you want it, and if you need to change the properties, tear that one down and replace it with a new one.
I looks pretty simple on the face of it, but I'm positive there will be some additional complications. Each NativeWindow has its own stage (IIRC) so you might not have the resourceManager moved across correctly for example. I've never gone further than a quick demo with this, so you might run into a limitation that's insurmountable (as Jeff's intuition is telling him)
Related
We created a small painting application in JavaFX. A new requirement arose, where we have to warn the user, that he made changes, which are not yet persisted and asking him, if the user might like to save first before closing.
Sample Snapshot:
Unfortunately there are a lot of different Nodes, and Nodes can be changed in many ways, like for example a Polygon point can move. The Node itself can be dragged. They can be rotated and many more. So before firing a zillion events for every possible change of a Node object to the canvas I`d like to ask, if anyone might have an idea on how to simplify this approach. I am curious, if there are any listeners, that I can listen to any changes of the canvas object within the scene graph of JavaFX.
Especially since I just want to know if anything has changed and not really need to know the specific change.
Moreover, I also do not want to get every single event, like a simple select, which causes a border to be shown around the selected node (like shown on the image), which does not necessary mean, that the user has to save his application before leaving.
Anyone have an idea? Or do I really need to fire Events for every single change within a Node?
I think you are approaching this problem in the wrong way. The nodes displayed on screen should just be a visual representation of an underlying model. All you really need to know is that the underlying model has changed.
If, for example, you were writing a text editor, the text displayed on the screen would be backed by some sort of model. Let's assume the model is a String. You wouldn't need to check if any of the text nodes displayed on screen had changed you would just need to compare the original string data with the current string data to determine if you need to prompt the user to save.
Benjamin's answer is probably the best one here: you should use an underlying model, and that model can easily check if relevant state has changed. At some point in the development of your application, you will come to the point where you realize this is the correct way to do things. It seems like you have reached that point.
However, if you want to delay the inevitable redesign of your application a little further (and make it a bit more painful when you do get to that point ;) ), here's another approach you might consider.
Obviously, you have some kind of Pane that is holding the objects that are being painted. The user must be creating those objects and you're adding them to the pane at some point. Just create a method that handles that addition, and registers an invalidation listener with the properties of interest when you do. The structure will look something like this:
private final ReadOnlyBooleanWrapper unsavedChanges =
new ReadOnlyBooleanWrapper(this, "unsavedChanged", false);
private final ChangeListener<Object> unsavedChangeListener =
(obs, oldValue, newValue) -> unsavedChanges.set(true);
private Pane drawingPane ;
// ...
Button saveButton = new Button("Save");
saveButton.disableProperty().bind(unsavedChanges.not());
// ...
#SafeVarArgs
private final <T extends Node> void addNodeToDrawingPane(
T node, Function<T, ObservableValue<?>>... properties) {
Stream.of(properties).forEach(
property -> property.apply(node).addListener(unsavedChangeListener));
drawingPane.getChildren().add(node);
}
Now you can do things like
Rectangle rect = new Rectangle();
addNodeToDrawingPane(rect,
Rectangle::xProperty, Rectangle::yProperty,
Rectangle::widthProperty, Rectangle::heightProperty);
and
Text text = new Text();
addNodeToDrawingPane(text,
Text::xProperty, Text::yProperty, Text::textProperty);
I.e. you just specify the properties to observe when you add the new node. You can create a remove method which removes the listener too. The amount of extra code on top of what you already have is pretty minimal, as (probably, I haven't seen your code) is the refactoring.
Again, you should really have a separate view model, etc. I wanted to post this to show that #kleopatra's first comment on the question ("Listen for invalidation of relevant state") doesn't necessarily involve a lot of work if you approach it in the right way. At first, I thought this approach was incompatible with #Tomas Mikula's mention of undo/redo functionality, but you may even be able to use this approach as a basis for that too.
I have a component I created that works like a Viewstack but the next index component slides in from one of the four sides. I've got it working well enough that it's acceptable to use, but I want to make it more efficient.
Right now I'm using a Canvas as the base component, I create a snapshot of the current view using an ImageSnapshot (new Bitmap( ImageSnapshot.captureBitmapData( this ) )), and I slide the new index on top of that image on index change.
I'm basically looking for suggestions on how to do this a better way. By taking the Image after the component loads, and after the slide happens, I've gotten the initial jaded moves down to a minimum, but we normally use this for transitioning grids so it's almost always slow on the first or first couple slides.
Here's what some of it looks like so far:
private function creationComplete(e:Event):void
{
tmpImage.source = new Bitmap( ImageSnapshot.captureBitmapData( this ) );
}
public function set selectedIndex(value:int):void
{
if(_selectedIndex == value + 1)
return;
_selectedIndex = value+1;
var obj:UIComponent;
tmpImage.height = height;
tmpImage.width = width;
tmpImage.visible = true;
tmpImage.x = 0;
//tmpImage.includeInLayout = true;
for (var i:int = 1; i < numChildren; i++)
{
obj = UIComponent(getChildAt(i));
//obj.x = width;
if(i == _selectedIndex){
obj.visible = true;
objDisplay = obj;
}
else
obj.visible = false;
}
mv1.target = tmpImage;
mv2.target = objDisplay;
switch ( direction )
{
// X/Y sliding logic
}
parEfect.play();
tmpImage.source = new Bitmap( ImageSnapshot.captureBitmapData( this ) );
}
If you're wondering, I'm using index 0 of the canvas for the image, and offset my custom selectedIndex by 1.
I'll post more of it if need be, but I want to keep the question down to a minimum and this pretty much sums it up.
Any help is greatly appreciated! I really want to get this component to perform better. Also, this has to be done using Flex 3
What are mv1 and mv2? Are they Flex Effects? If so they are notoriously slow, I recommend using TweenLite. If you absolutely need to use them set suspendBackgroundProcessing = true on them. Last but not least, make sure you do not have a layout set on them. If you do you are causing a re-layout every frame which can easily bog down animation.
You are probably getting some memory hits from all the components being created and then immediately being converted to an image. I would definitely try adding some intelligence at creation time. Try checking the memory usage and test against maximum mem load before creating the image:
http://livedocs.adobe.com/flash/9.0/ActionScriptLangRefV3/flash/system/System.html
However, I would need to look at what is being created in the object. I suspect that you are loading some pretty heavy objects in each of the views. And if you are loading data from the server for each object, there will be a lag, possibly.
Set up a priority queue for creating objects within the class that is being created . . . e.g., if you have a menu system that is hidden by default, load the front-end, then load the menu drop-down only when a user clicks on it, or after all other immediately visible objects have been created. You will also have the advantage of being able to take a snapshot when all the immediately visible objects are in place, and before the hidden objects are created.
Finally, add event listeners after object creation, if you can, and remember to remove listeners asap.
Do you use Flex 3 or Flex 4?
Because if you use Flex 4, I would recommand to use Animate Filter with Shader Filter.
Shader Filters use Pixel Bender so you can build a shader in Pixel Bender that will do the transition between your 2 images.
See these 2 videos for more info :
http://tv.adobe.com/watch/codedependent/pixel-bender-shaders-and-flex-4/
http://tv.adobe.com/watch/codedependent/shader-transitions-in-flex-4
It would be helpful to see how you're creating your Move effects, mv1 and mv2. It is possible to set combinations of the *From, *To, and/or *By attributes--or various manipulations of the properties that control the tween's speed/duration--that together can cause "jitter" or "jerkiness" in the resulting animation.
of course, it's also possible that you're hitting against a performance barrier of some sort, but I suspect it's something more insidious. Simple translation ("x/y sliding") of any clip should perform relatively well, as long as the clip hasn't been rotated, skewed, or scaled; and as long as the processor isn't completely maxed out with some other operation that's going on at the same time.
In most cases, when defining a Move effect, you want to set as little information as possible, and let Flex compute the optimum values for the other things. Usually, this means setting only xTo and yTo.
Also, be sure to call end() on your tweens before you start setting up the new values (just in case any previous sequence is still running).
Finally - make sure that you're not competing with the component's layout manager during the tween. While the tween is running, you should disable the layout completely (by setting autoLayout=false on your container component)--or you can change the layout (temporarily) to an absolute layout. Either way, the tween must be allowed to move things around while it's running, and the moving of stuff must not cause the layout manager to recompute things until after it's all over. Once it's finished, you can re-enable whatever layout manager you had originally.
I'm binding two AutoCompleteModified objects to one another; meaning you type
in one and it selects the correct object in the other. It works fine when I
define it in MXML:
However, a user can add a new row to a Grid and then I set up the binding and
objects via actionscript and it gives an 'undefined' error: ChangeWatcher line 427/wrapHandler.
var innerHBox:HBox = new HBox();
var dtc_acm:AutoCompleteModified = new AutoCompleteModified();
dtc_acm.dataProvider = data2;
dtc_acm.labelField = 'id';
var cp_acm:AutoCompleteModified = new AutoCompleteModified();
cp_acm.dataProvider = data2;
cp_acm.labelField = 'name';cp_acm.width = this.CP1.width;
BindingUtils.bindProperty( dtc_acm,'selectedIndex',cp_acm,'selectedIndex' );
BindingUtils.bindProperty( cp_acm,'selectedItem',dtc_acm,'selectedItem' );
innerHBox.addChild( dtc_acm );
innerHBox.addChild( cp_acm );
I don't understand what may be happening here. Can anyone see any potential
problems in my code? If I only keep it 1-way binding then it works fine. But both throw this error. Is there something about not only doing it 2-way in actionscript, but adding components that aren't on the stage yet?
Thank you kindly for any helpful tips,
Matt
I'm trying to do the same thing. It works in MXML but not in AS. For example, this works:
<mx:TextArea id="t1" verticalScrollPosition="{t2.verticalScrollPosition}" height="200"/>
<mx:TextArea id="t2" verticalScrollPosition="{t1.verticalScrollPosition}" height="200"/>
If I scroll one of the TextAreas then the other one scrolls too. However, trying to do the same thing in actionscript causes a stack overflow (infinite loop)
BindingUtils.bindProperty( _t1, 'verticalScrollPosition', _t2, 'verticalScrollPosition' );
BindingUtils.bindProperty( _t2, 'verticalScrollPosition', _t1, 'verticalScrollPosition' );
I used the -keep-generated-actionscript compiler option and looked at the generated asctionscript for the mxml example and it creates a couple mx.binding.Binding objects and it looks like the key is setting the twoWayCounterpart property. I haven't tried mimicking that code yet but it might help you.
Since the two components are bound to each other like this I'm not surprised you are seeing this, I'm more surprised that it worked via mxml.
Have you tried changing the (optional) 5th parameter in bindProperty to true? That parameter is commitOnly and defaults to false. That may fix your problem.
Another approach could be to have an intermediary variable to store the selected item and bind your components to that variable.
Hope that helps.
I am trying to duplicate a flex component at run time.
For example if i have this
mx:Button label="btn" id="btn" click="handleClick(event)"/>
i should be able to call a function called DuplicateComponent() and it should return me a UI component thts exactly same as above button including the event listeners with it.
Can some one help me please??
Thanks in advance
Do a Byte Array Copy. This code segment should do it for you:
// ActionScript file
import flash.utils.ByteArray;
private function clone(source:Object):*
{
var myBA:ByteArray = new ByteArray();
myBA.writeObject(source);
myBA.position = 0;
return(myBA.readObject());
}
One note, I did not write this code myself, I'm pretty sure I got it from a post on the Flex Coder's list.
To solve that problem you should use actionscript and create the buttons dynamically.
Lets say you want the button(s) to go in a VBox called 'someVbox'
for (var i:uint = 0; i< 10; i++){
var but:Button = new Button();
but.label = 'some_id_'+i;
but.id = 'some_id_'+i;
but.addEventListener(MouseEvent.CLICK, 'handleClick');
someVbox.addChild(but);
}
I haven't tested it, but that should add 10 buttons to a vbox with a bit of luck.
You can't take a deep copy of UIComponents natively. You're best bet would be to create a new one and analyse the one you have to add a duplicate setup. To be honest this does sound like a bit of a code smell. I wonder if there may be a better solution to the problem with a bit of a rethink..
Same question as: http://www.flexforum.org/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=1421
Showing up in a google search for the same thing. So you've cut&pasted the same question a month later. No luck eh?
There is no easy way to do this that I know of. Many of a component's settings are dependent on the container/context/etc... and get instantiated during the creation process, so there's no reason to clone from that perspective.
You can clone key settings in actionscript and use those when creating new elements.
For instance, assuming you only care about properties, you might have an array ["styleName","width","height",...], and you can maybe use the array like this:
var newUI:UIComponent = new UIComponent();
for each(var s:String in propArray) {
newUI[s] = clonedUI[s];
}
If you want more bites on your question (rather than waiting a month), tell us what you are trying to achieve.
mx.utils.ObjectUtil often comes in handy, however for complex object types, it's typically good practice to implement an interface that requires a .clone() method, similar to how Events are cloned.
For example:
class MyClass implements ICanvasObject
{
...
public function clone():ICanvasObject
{
var obj:MyClass = new MyClass(parameters...);
return obj;
}
}
This gives your code more clarity and properly encapsulates concerns in the context of how the object is being used / cloned.
You are right but as per my understanding UI Components are not cloned by mx.utils.ObjectUtil.
from : http://livedocs.adobe.com/flex/201/langref/mx/utils/ObjectUtil.html#copy()
copy () method
public static function copy(value:Object):Object
Copies the specified Object and returns a reference to the copy. The copy is made using a native serialization technique. This means that custom serialization will be respected during the copy.
This method is designed for copying data objects, such as elements of a collection. It is not intended for copying a UIComponent object, such as a TextInput control. If you want to create copies of specific UIComponent objects, you can create a subclass of the component and implement a clone() method, or other method to perform the copy.
Parameters value:Object — Object that should be copied.
Returns Object — Copy of the specified Object
Maybe I should further qualify this - Is there a way to specify which direction a ComboBox will open without copying and pasting the entire ComboBox class and ripping out the code where it determines which direction it will open in...
I'm my specific case - I need it to open upwards - always.
UPDATE: You can't fix this by subclassing it because the function that handles the direction of the opening is:
private function displayDropdown(show:Boolean, trigger:Event = null):void
And that bad boy uses a fair amount of private variables which my subclass wouldn't have access to...
If you build up the Menu object yourself, you can place the menu anywhere you want by simply setting the x,y coordinates of the menu object. You'll need to calculate those coordinates, but you might be able to do this easily without subclassing ComboBox.
I am doing something similar with PopUpButton; you might find it easier to work with PopUpButton. This is based on real code from my current project:
private function initMenu(): void {
var m:Menu = new Menu();
m.dataProvider = theMenuData;
m.addEventListener(MenuEvent.ITEM_CLICK, menuClick);
m.showRoot = false;
// m.x = ... <-- probably don't need to tweak this.
// m.y = ... <-- this is really the interesting one :-)
theMenu.popUp = m;
}
<mx:PopUpButton id="theMenu" creationComplete="initMenu()" ... />
BTW, to get the PopUpButton to act more like I wanted it (always popup, no matter where the click), setting openAlways=true in the MXML works like a charm.
I doubt it - you'd need to subclass the control (which isn't that big a deal.)
Maybe you could mess with the real estate so it's placed in such a fashion (e.g. crowded into the lower right corner) that up is naturally coerced?
I would recommend checking out this post. Yes, you do have to grab the ComboBox code and modify it, but at least now you have an idea where the modifications need to go.
You could set the MaxDropDownHeight, if you set it big enough Windows will automatically set the direction upwards.
This irritated me no end. I have uploaded a solution, its a simple Class that extends the PopUpButton and removes the logic of stage bounds detection as it failed 50% of the time anyway. My code just allows you to simply specify whether you want to open the menu up or down:
http://gist.github.com/505255