Adobe® Flex® 3 Bible

Chapter 13. Working with Pop-up Windows

In applications that are built for windows-style operating systems, such as Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X, and the various windowing interfaces on Linux and other operating systems, pop-up windows are commonly used to get the user's attention, provide information, and collect data. Not all Flex applications have or require pop-up windows, but they're a common interface that users of these operating systems easily recognize and know how to use.

Flex applications are able to present pop-up windows in a variety of forms. Whether you want to display a simple information message or create a more customized user experience, you have these options:

• The Alert class creates a simple pop-up dialog box displaying simple String values. The Alert class also can be used to allow the user to confirm or cancel an operation before it's executed, and it can include a custom graphical icon.

• The PopUpMenuButton control displays a two-part Button control that displays a single-level pop-up menu when clicked.

• The PopUpButton control combines a Button with any other visual component that you want to display when clicked.

• Custom pop-up windows can be created with the TitleWindow container, and presented and managed with the PopUpManager class.

In this chapter, I describe each of these options and provide examples of how these classes and controls can be used.

Note

To use the sample code for this chapter, import the chapter13 .zip Flex project archive from the Web site files ...