Flash® Builder™ 4 and Flex® 4 Bible

Chapter 20. Using Advanced List Controls

IN THIS CHAPTER

• Using the Spark DropDownList and ButtonBar components

• Using ComboBox controls

• Creating a bindable DropDownList component

• Using the DataGrid control

• Selecting and customizing DataGrid columns

• Presenting custom labels in a DataGrid column

• Using custom item editors in a DataGrid column

• Using the TileList and HorizontalList controls

• Using the AdvancedDataGrid control

All list controls are not created equal. The two simplest list controls — the Spark and MX List controls — display a single column of values and support the common functionality of custom labels, item renderers, and so on. But other, more advanced list controls, such as the ComboBox and DropDownList, are really compound controls that add features such as enabling users to enter their own arbitrary values.

More complex list controls — such as the Spark ButtonBar and the MX DataGrid, Tree, TileList, and HorizontalList — have their own unique capabilities. And as I described briefly in Chapter 19, the Adobe AIRbased list controls have the capability to populate data from the local file system.

In Chapter 19, I described functionality that's common to all list controls, from the most fundamental to the most advanced. In this chapter, I describe the unique capabilities of specific data-driven controls, starting with the DropDownList and ComboBox and working up to the TileList, HorizontalList, and DataGrid.

Note

To use the sample code for this chapter, import the chapter20.fxp project ...