Flex 3 question:
I trying here to avoid having to bind resources to all my components labels ( ie a button) and find a way to have this automated.
Problem:
It corrupts the layout in design mode to bind directly in the mxml label="{resourceManager.getString('myResources', 'submit')}" and makes the design view useless. but when declaring bindings elsewhere, in actionScript or via a bind tag, it is counter productive and prone to many errors and miss.
Proposition:
I would like to create my own button that automatically invoke resources to localize a button label. So the author puts "Submit" in the mxml description of my button, and when running it would take the value of the label ie "submit" and use resourceManager.getString('myResources', 'submit').
but I can't find the way to override the set label function, Is it possible if yes how? else how can I go about it?
Maybe I am missing an essential process here that would make the use of resources more elegant, as well as how to override such thing as a button's label.
Thanks for your advices.
Create a component called MyButton, extending Button. Then use this:
override public function set label(value:String):void {
super.label = resourceManager.getString('myResources', value) || value;
}
Assuming the resource manager returns "null" or "undefined" this will work, and will only replace the value if it exists in "myResources".
If you don't want to override every component you need to do this with, then you can add a FlexEvent.CREATION_COMPLETE event on every component. Then use a single generic function to do your label localization.
Related
I have a Grid, which have a TopToolbar and BottomToolbar. In the BottomToolbar, I added a CSVDataExporter:
CSVDataExporter csvDataExporter = new CSVDataExporter();
csvDataExporter.setDataFormatNameModel(new ResourceModel("csv.export.link.name"));
csvDataExporter.setDelimiter('|');
addBottomToolbar(new ExportToolbar(this).addDataExporter(csvDataExporter));
I have the link, so I can export the table to CSV fine!
BUT! How could I change the CSV export link to be a Button, but do the same and be at the same place as it was? Thank you!
The Link is generated by your ExportToolbar using the createExportLink method. To generate something else (as in any other component) you can extend the ExportToolbar to override this method. If this is the only place where you need this functionality, you can do so by implementing an anonymous inner class.
Generally you'll want this method to return a Component that has it's own markup, like a Panel, that contains whatever you want to display as your Exportlink or -button.
By "refresh" I am completely disposing it and then introducing it again in the application (without closing the application itself - that is). Other than than I think the question is self-explanatory.
Example:
Say I have a component named myComponent. I add that component to the application using MXMl in the standard way <components:myComponent id="myID" />. Say that when a user clicks a button (the button may be in another state), the component with id myID should be garbage-collected and a new instance of it added to the application.
How do I go about doing that? If there are multiple solutions which one is the optimal performance-wise?
I am new to Flash and Flex so excuse me if any incorrect terminology were used.
Remove all the event listeners from the old component; whatever they are using the removeEventListener method:
myButton.removeEventListener(someEvent, someEventHandlerMethod);
Then all variables that refer to the component should be set to null. If created in an MXML file, like this:
<s:Button id="myButton" />
Then all you have to do is set that value to null:
myButton = null;
Once there are no references to the component, it can safely become eligible for garbage collection.
If you want to re-created, then just re-created it. You'll have to re-create it in ActionScript, but the code isn't hard. Conceptually something like this:
myButton = new myButton();
myButton.properties = propertyValues;
myButton.addEventListener(someEvent, someEventHandlerMethod);
parentContainer.addChildAt(myButton, whateverPositionYouWantToADdTheComponentAt);
I'm not sure I see the benefit of doing this. I suspect it'll be much more efficient to tweak the existing button instance in the way you need to as opposed to destroying it and trying to replace it with the exact same thing.
If I have a button in my View named, say, Save, then I can add a Save property to my ViewModel, and Caliburn.Micro will automatically bind it to my button's Content. For example:
public string Save { get { return StringResources.Save; } }
Or I can add a Save method to my ViewModel, and Caliburn.Micro will execute that method when the button is clicked. For example:
public void Save() {
Document.Save();
}
But what if I want to do both? C# doesn't let me declare a method and a property with the same name. Can I use conventions to both set the button's Content and the action to perform when it's clicked?
(I know I can manually bind one or the other, but I'd rather use conventions if it's practical.)
This is a common need, so you'd think it would be built into Caliburn.Micro, but it doesn't seem to be. I've seen some code that extends the conventions to support this (and I'll post it as an answer if nothing better comes along), but it's a workaround with some bizarre quirks -- so I'd like to hear if anyone else has made this work more cleanly.
Note: I did see this similar question, but it seems to be about whether this is a good idea or not; I'm asking about the mechanics. (I'll reserve judgment on whether it's a good idea until I've seen the mechanics. (grin))
Quick and dirty
<Button x:Name="Save"><TextBlock x:Name="SaveText"></TextBlock></Button>
I have a checkbox in a component:
<s:CheckBox id="myCB_1" />
In my main.mxml I need to test for the state of the checkbox. I originally had all my code in main.mxml, but it was getting really long, and I thought that it was better practice to break my code into components. Also, I have other projects where the same concept will apply, so I really want to figure this out.
I have the following function :
private function checkAlarms(currentTime:Date):void
{
if (!breakfastAlarmSounded)
{
if ((currentTime.hours > breakfastTime.hours) || ((currentTime.hours == breakfastTime.hours) && (currentTime.minutes >= breakfastTime.minutes)))
{
if (myCB_1.selected)
{
playBreakfastAudioAlarm();
}
if (myCB_2.selected)
{
playBreakfastVisualAlarm();
}
breakfastAlarmSounded = true;
}
}
...
simply addressing the component, as in:
myComponent.myCB_1.selected
doesn't work. Someone mentioned that I need to create a variable in my component that refers to the id (myCB_1) of checkbox, but I don't really understand or know how to do that, and they didn't elaborate.
How do I test for the status of the CheckBox "myCB_1" in the component from within my main.mxml?
many thanks,
Mark
(newbie)
With very little information, I'm going to suspect you originally had the CheckBox included in main.mxml and moved it to a custom component. If so, you need to address the CheckBox's ID via the custom component's ID. Something like this (from main.mxml):
if(yourComponentsID.myCB_1.selected)
{
...
}
If this isn't the case, please edit your post and give us more detail.
EDIT
You said you created a new custom component and moved the CheckBox into it. Great, that's a helpful start :) When you included your new component in your main.mxml file, it should look something like this:
<component:YourNewComponent />
Of course, however you named it (and whichever namespace is used to reference it) will be different from my example, but the principle should still apply. In main.mxml, you need to give your custom component a unique ID string so you can reference it within main:
<component:YourNewComponent id="myComponent" />
From here on, you should be able to reference the component, and any public elements within it: myComponent.myCB_1.
It would be useful to provide more details about the context in which you're using this script. Nonetheless I'm going to throw out some information that may help.
In order for the script to access the component, it has to be within the scope of the component. Usually that means one of the following:
You have a <script> tag in the MXML, with code in it that references components within the same MXML file.
You have a <script source='external.as'/> tag in the MXML, where external.as is referencing components in the MXML file.
You are creating the component in your script and you have a definition for the component within ActionScript (ex. var myCB_1:CheckBox; is within the class definition).
If the script and the component aren't within the same scope then they can't see one another.
You need to refer to the checkbox through the component. Lets say that you use your component in your main like this:
<local:MyComponent id="myComponent" />
In your script, you want to refer to it:
if(myComponent.myCB_1.selected) { // do something }
Strangely enough, it works. I was getting a getting an 1119 error (Description 1119: Access of possibly undefined property myCB_1 through a reference with static type Class.) when I refer to the component with dot notation (myComponent.myCB_1.selected) and an 1120 error (Description 1120: Access of undefined property myCB_1) when not addressing it via myComponent.
With these errors I never thought to try running the thing. Long story short - it runs with or without addressing the component (???) go figure!
thanks for all the input and would love to hear any other comments.
MCE
Below is the overriden on complete function for a preloader in Flex.
private function initComplete(e:Event):void
{
//dispatchEvent(new Event(Event.COMPLETE));
cp.status.text="Configuring... Please Wait";
}
What I want to do is when the app has finsihed loading I want to change the preloaders text to "configuring".
Then I want to go and do a bunch of setup stuff in my code.
Once I've done all the setup I wanted how can I get the Preloader to dispatch its Event.complete from else where in my code?
I tried Application.application.preloader but it comes up null.
So I guess my question really is how to access a preloader from anywhere in my application.
Would a better approach be to have all setup classes as members of my preloader class?
One thing that might help is a Model-View-Controller pattern. Are you using a framework for your application like Mate, Swiz, or Cairngorm?
If you were using Mate, for example, you could do something like this:
Create an AppStateManager class with a property (e.g. applicationState)
Create an EventMap with an EventHandler for the FlexEvent.INITIALIZE event. In this handler, set the AppStateManager.applicationState to something like "CONFIGURING"
Your EventMap has an injector that injects the applicationState property into a view. The injector listens for changes to this property and updates the view. In this case it might just be injected into your main view.
In the main view, you have a public bindable property also called applicationState that gets injected by Mate.
In the setter for this property, you can have an if/then or a switch that does different tasks depending on the state. For example, if applicationState == "COMPLETE", then this.preloader.dispatchEvent(Event.COMPLETE) or something like that.
The details are pseudo-sketched out but the idea is to use Flex's bindings to notify view components when changes have been made, and to have shared objects that maintain state. Not sure if that's what you're looking for...
The component LifeCycle does specific stuff in a specific order, and the near final element is to make the component visible.
It sounds to me like you want to defer this setting of visible to true to do other stuff. But, I imaging if you were making use of the component LifeCycle this would be a non-issue.
What sort of app init stuff do you need to do?