CFEclipse and Flex Builder 2

Posted At : April 13, 2006 11:30 AM | Posted By : Jeffry Houser
Related Categories: ColdFusion,Flex,Professional

I just installed Flex Builder 2 as a plugin to Eclipse. Previously I was using it as stand-alone. That means it sits along side CFEclipse in the same IDE editor.

I must say, this is a big improvement over what I did yesterday ( with two IDEs opened side by side).

Although, it does look like I need separate projects for CF vs Flex. The ability to create a combined project that uses both technologies would be nice.

I've been experimenting with creating Flex 2 components (It seems like a natural way to build apps). I cannot figure out how create variables inside a component that are accessible from the application which contains the component.

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All mxml components inside your custom component are by default defined as public and by adding an 'id' property, you can reference them.

# Posted By James | 4/13/06 11:25 AM

Jeff,

You must define public bindable variables in your component

In your application you can use:

<mycomp myproperty="somevalue"/>

in mycomp:

[Bindable]
public var myproperty:myPropertyType;

# Posted By João Fernandes | 4/13/06 11:25 AM

James,

I was trying to make an Actionscript variable accessible; but you are right the MXML components were accessible w/o problem.

(I discovered that right after I posted)

João,

Thanks that was exactly what I was trying to do. It seems like a much cleaner solution, to me, than creating invisible 'labels' to hold component data.

# Posted By Jeff Houser | 4/13/06 11:52 AM

Hey Jeff, I'm pretty sure you should be able to associate Flex/CF nature for a single project. If you right click on the project you should be able to click on "Apply CFE Nature" or if it's a CF project right click and Add Flex Project nature. Is that what you're looking to do or did I misunderstand?

# Posted By Ryan Stewart | 4/13/06 4:23 PM

Ryan,

I did not know that existed. It seems like that is exactly what I was looking for. Thanks!

# Posted By Jeff Houser | 4/13/06 7:01 PM

João,
Quick question - in the declaration of "somevalue" at the application level, do you have to declare that as [Bindeable] too?

David

# Posted By David | 4/14/06 8:20 AM

Jeff, all properties that use [Bindable] (even getters and setters) execute automaticaly when that value changes. So if you have a variable in your application that you want to propagate into your custom components when it has been changed, yes, you need to define it as [Bindable].

# Posted By João Fernandes | 4/14/06 9:27 AM

[Bindable] wouldn't be used unless you'll be listening for changes (ie if the user is logged in)

So in an Application, you could just put 'public var foo:Boolean = true;' (w/out any metadata tags) and reference it as 'Application.application.foo' elsewhere in the app.

# Posted By James | 4/14/06 9:34 AM

James,
Thanks for the tip - as a matter of interest, you have a double reference to "application" - as I'm new to Flex 2, I don't understand why that is - could you explain?

Thanks,

David

# Posted By David | 4/14/06 9:40 AM

'mx.core.Application.application' is a global reference to the top-level Application, but you could also reference the parent using 'uiComponentInstance.parentApplication'

And if there were an hierarchy of Application objects we could traverse up.

# Posted By James | 4/14/06 10:17 AM

That's great - thanks.

# Posted By David | 4/14/06 10:42 AM

Jeff,

If you want to avoid mx.core.Application.application all over your app, you should take a look at cairgorm. Cairngorm is a MVC framework for Flex. For now is still alpha (for flex2).

If you have any questions about Flex you can contact me anytime.

# Posted By João Fernandes | 4/14/06 3:12 PM

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