I am not completely sure why Adobe decided not to include this in their base classes when creating the Flex framework. They have, more or less, given all of the class structure in the definition of what a menuitem must contain…enabled, toggle, groupName, etc. I decided that there’s absolutely no point in rewriting the same thing over and over again, so why not create a MenuItem class.
package com.archfamily.utility {
[Bindable]
public class MenuItem {
/***********************************
* properties
**********************************/
private var _enabled:Boolean = true;
private var _groupName:String = "";
private var _icon:Class;
private var _label:String = "";
private var _toggled:Boolean = true;
private var _type:String = "";
/***********************************
* getters
**********************************/
public function get enabled():Boolean {
return this._enabled;
}
public function get groupName():String {
return this._groupName;
}
public function get icon():Class {
return this._icon;
}
public function get label():String {
return this._label;
}
public function get toggled():Boolean {
return this._toggled;
}
public function get type():String {
return this._type;
}
/***********************************
* setters
**********************************/
public function set enabled( value:Boolean ):void {
this._enabled = value;
}
public function set groupName( value:String ):void {
this._groupName = value;
}
public function set icon( value:Class ):void {
this._icon = value;
}
public function set label( value:String ):void {
this._label = value;
}
public function set toggled( value:Boolean ):void {
this._toggled = value;
}
[Inspectable(enumeration=separator,check,radio,normal)]
public function set type( value:String ):void {
this._type = value;
}
public function MenuItem( label:String="", enabled:Boolean=true, type:String="normal", toggled:Boolean=true, groupName:String="", icon:Class=null ) {
this.enabled = enabled;
this.groupName = groupName;
this.icon = icon;
this.label = label;
this.toggled = toggled;
this.type = type;
}
}
}I added the properties to the constructor so that the menu items could be created without have to first create a variable for them, but could rather just do something like “myArray.push( new MenuItem( “myLabel”, true ) )”. Initially I added the “children” as a property of this class, but then I found out that this will cause the menu items to show an arrow next to their name as if the MenuItem actually had children (even though the item is an empty array). In order to circumvent this problem, I decided to create a second class, MenuItemWithChildren, that extends MenuItem, but adds the property “children”:
package com.archfamily.utility {
public class MenuItemWithChildren extends MenuItem {
/***********************************
* properties
**********************************/
private var _children:Array = [];
/***********************************
* getters
**********************************/
public function get children():Array {
return this._children;
}
/***********************************
* setters
**********************************/
public function set children( value:Array ):void {
this._children = value;
}
public function MenuItemWithChildren(label:String="", enabled:Boolean=true, type:String="normal", toggled:Boolean=true, groupName:String="", icon:Class=null) {
super(label, enabled, type, toggled, groupName, icon);
}
}
}Now, whenever I want to create a menu item within one of my menu bars, all I have to do is create an array that holds all of my MenuItem or MenuItemWithChildren classes, and I have strongly typed class rather than a plain, old array of generic objects. The one other thing to note is that if the menu is not created in the property declarations, then you have to set the array to the dataProvider of the menu item, or it will not refresh the view and you will not be able to see your menu items. The implementation would look something like this:
<mx:Application xmlns:mx="http://www.adobe.com/2006/mxml" layout="absolute" creationComplete="init()" xmlns:archfamily="com.archfamily.utility.*">
<mx:Script>
<![CDATA[
import com.archfamily.utility.MenuItemWithChildren;
import com.archfamily.utility.MenuItem;
[Bindable] private var menuData:Array = [];
public function init():void {
var menuItem:MenuItemWithChildren = new MenuItemWithChildren( "test 1", true );
menuItem.children.push( new MenuItem( "test 4", true ) );
menuItem.children.push( new MenuItem( "test 5", false ) );
menuData.push( menuItem );
menuData.push( new MenuItem( "test2", true ) );
menuData.push( new MenuItem( "test3", false ) );
mb.dataProvider = menuData;
}
]]>
</mx:Script>
<mx:VBox>
<mx:ApplicationControlBar id="acb">
<mx:MenuBar id="mb" dataProvider="{ menuData }" />
</mx:ApplicationControlBar>
</mx:VBox>
</mx:Application>I haven’t had to use the Menu class very often yet, but I’m sure this will come in handy to someone else. If nothing else, it saves typing in Flex Builder.
Enjoy!
Building off of my last post, I thought I might as well create a deduped arraycollection as well, just in case anyone wanted to use the data for something other than a combobox. The implementation for this component is very similar to that of the combobox. The DedupeArrayCollection allows you to pass it an array (one that has some kind of properties to each of the items within it), then set the dedupeProperty to whatever field you wish to dedupe.
The DedupeArrayCollection:
package com.archfamily {
import flash.events.Event;
import flash.utils.Dictionary;
import mx.collections.ArrayCollection;
import mx.events.CollectionEvent;
public class DedupeArrayCollection extends ArrayCollection {
private var _dedupeProperty:String = "";
public function set dedupeProperty( value:String ):void {
_dedupeProperty = value;
this.source = this.source;
}
public function get dedupeProperty():String {
return _dedupeProperty;
}
/**
*
* Needed to override the standard dataprovider in order to reset
* the duplicate value each time
*
*/
override public function set source( value:Array ):void {
var _returnArray:Array = value;
if ( value && dedupeProperty.length > 0 ) {
var _map:Dictionary = new Dictionary( true );
value.forEach( function( item:*, index:int, array:Array ):void {
_map[ item[ this ] ] = item; // in the loop, this == dedupeProperty
}, dedupeProperty );
_returnArray = [];
for each ( var object:Object in _map ) {
_returnArray.push( object );
}
}
super.source = _returnArray;
}
public function DedupeArrayCollection( source:Array=null ) {
super( source );
}
}
}The implementation of the arraycollection:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<mx:Application xmlns:mx="http://www.adobe.com/2006/mxml" layout="absolute" creationComplete="init()" xmlns:archfamily="com.archfamily.*">
<mx:Script>
<![CDATA[
import com.archfamily.DedupeArrayCollection;
[Bindable] private var ac:DedupeArrayCollection = new DedupeArrayCollection( [ { name: "car", total: 100 },{ name: "bus", total: 200 },{ name: "bike", total: 300 },{ name: "train", total: 200 },{ name: "boat", total: 400 },{ name: "car", total: 500 },{ name: "bus", total: 200 },{ name: "convertible", total: 100 },{ name: "gizmo", total: 300 },{ name: "boat", total: 300 },{ name: "car", total: 100 },{ name: "dune buggy", total:300 },{ name: "motorcycle", total: 100 }] );
public function init():void {
ac.dedupeProperty = "total";
}
]]>
</mx:Script>
<mx:VBox>
<mx:ComboBox id="testing" dataProvider="{ ac }" labelField="name" />
</mx:VBox>
</mx:Application>The only thing I would probably change is to figure out what event needs to fire when my dedupeProperty is set to get the arraycollection to reload the source. Currently I’m just setting the source to itself so that the event fires and reloads the arraycollection, but just firing the event would probably be less overhead.
There are times that I have wanted to remove all duplicates from a combobox’s dataprovider, but haven’t wanted to requery the database or roll my own code snippet each time to remove those duplicates. To make my life a little easier (and hopefully anyone else that may be in need of this feature), I’ve created the DedupeComboBox class.
This handy little item allows you to set the dataprovider of the combobox to an array or arraycollection, and set the labelField value and the combobox will then handle the rest. The labelfield is important as that is what allows the component to remove the duplicates from the arraycollection (if it is an array, it must also be an array of objects with properties that match the labelField or it will not remove anything). Also, as the items populate the deduped dictionary instance, the value of that item in the arraycollection is saved to that “key” in the dictionary, allowing for retrieval of it later on if necessary.
package com.archfamily {
import flash.utils.Dictionary;
import mx.collections.ArrayCollection;
import mx.controls.ComboBox;
public class DedupeComboBox extends ComboBox {
/**
*
* Needed to override the standard dataprovider in order to reset
* the duplicate value each time
*
*/
override public function set dataProvider( value:Object ):void {
var _localArray:Array = ( value is ArrayCollection ) ? ( value as ArrayCollection ).source : value as Array;
var _map:Dictionary = new Dictionary( true );
if ( labelField.length > 0 ) {
_localArray.forEach( function( item:*, index:int, array:Array ):void {
_map[ item[ this ] ] = item; // in the loop, this == labelField
}, labelField );
}
var _returnArray:Array = [];
for each ( var object:Object in _map ) {
_returnArray.push( object );
}
super.dataProvider = _returnArray;
}
public function DedupeComboBox() {
super();
}
}
}then to implement it from your code you could do something as simple as this
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<mx:Application xmlns:mx="http://www.adobe.com/2006/mxml" layout="absolute" xmlns:archfamily="com.archfamily.*">
<mx:Script>
<![CDATA[
import mx.collections.ArrayCollection;
[Bindable] private var ac:ArrayCollection = new ArrayCollection([ { name: "car", total: 100 },{ name: "bus", total: 200 },{ name: "bike", total: 300 },{ name: "train", total: 200 },{ name: "boat", total: 400 },{ name: "car", total: 500 },{ name: "bus", total: 200 },{ name: "convertible", total: 100 },{ name: "gizmo", total: 300 },{ name: "boat", total: 300 },{ name: "car", total: 100 },{ name: "dune buggy", total:300 },{ name: "motorcycle", total: 100 }]);
]]>
</mx:Script>
<archfamily:DedupeComboBox id="testing" dataProvider="{ ac }" labelField="name" />
</mx:Application>You can even get just the non-duplicate totals by changing labelField=”name” to labelField=”total”.