Flex: Working with LinkBar viewstates

I've started experimenting with the LinkBar component for some navigation elements. I didn't want to use ViewStates because I'm loading and unloading items in a main window. I wanted to use it to capture navigation changes.

You can capture clicks on each part of a LinkBar and then do what you want from there. This is the code I used.

<![CDATA[
import mx.events.ItemClickEvent;
import mx.collections.ArrayCollection;

private var links:Array = [{label:'Browse', id:'browseLink'},{label:'Search', id:'searchLink'}];

[Bindable]
public var linkBarDataProvider:ArrayCollection = new ArrayCollection(links);

private function init() : void {
linkBar.addEventListener(ItemClickEvent.ITEM_CLICK, handleLinkBar);
}

private function handleLinkBar(event:ItemClickEvent) : void {
trace('item clicked: ' + event.item.id);
}
]]>

I created an Array with each navigation item I wanted and gave it a identifier. An event listener was set on the LinkBar to watch when items inside are clicked. The triggered event is ItemClickEvent.ITEM_CLICK. The event is passed to a function that will then look at the property called item. item is a reference to the element from the Array it used to create the navigation element. After I know which link was clicked I can load or unload the next item in the display.

The example was based on the post I found here.

Flex: Switching the debug default browser

I've started working in Flex quite a bit now. One of things that has bothered me is Flex always launches a debug window in Internet Explorer. I've been having some problems with the browser and would like to use something different, but couldn't figure out how to switch it. Someone showed me how this morning.

1) Goto Window => Preferences

2) Goto General => Web Browser

3) Select the browser you want to launch in the "External Web browsers" window.

Now your debug session should launch in your browser of choice.