comboBox - iterate through dropdown elements?

[Duke_Boyne]

I need to subdivide a large list of elements in a comboBox into smaller groups in Flash. Is there anyway to loop throught the elements and set te background color of each element to a value in the dataProvider object?

I can run through the loop using myPoS_combobox.dropdown

var ddList = myPoS_combobox.dropdown

for(var propertyName in ddList) {

     trace(ddList[propertyName])

}

But I can't seem to get to the individual elements, much less change their properties.

THANKS!

[kglad]

loop through myPoS_combobox'es dataProvider property.

[Duke_Boyne]

I can do that, but what I need to do is change individual cell background colors. Here is my data provider:

private var PoS_label_array:Array = new Array(

                    {label:"SN\tsubject noun", data:"SN", myColor:ShurleyColors.shurleyBlue},

                    {label:"CSN\tcomp subject noun", data:"CSN", myColor:ShurleyColors.shurleyBlue},

                    {label:"OP\tobject of the preposition noun", data:"OP", myColor:ShurleyColors.shurleyBlue},

                    {label:"COP\tcomp object of the preposition noun", data:"COP", myColor:ShurleyColors.shurleyBlue},

                    {label:"DO\tdirect object noun", data:"DO", myColor:ShurleyColors.shurleyBlue},

                    {label:"CDO\tcomp direct object noun", data:"CDO", myColor:ShurleyColors.shurleyBlue},

                    {label:"IO\tindirect object noun", data:"IO", myColor:ShurleyColors.shurleyBlue},

                    {label:"CIO\tcomp indirect object noun", data:"CIO", myColor:ShurleyColors.shurleyBlue},

                    {label:"PrN\tpredicate noun", data:"PrN", myColor:ShurleyColors.shurleyBlue},

                    {label:"CPrN\tcomp predicate noun", data:"CPrN", myColor:ShurleyColors.shurleyBlue},

                    {label:"OCN\tobject compliment noun", data:"OCN", myColor:ShurleyColors.shurleyBlue},

                    {label:"COCN\tcomp object compliment noun", data:"COCN", myColor:ShurleyColors.shurleyBlue},

                    /* PRONOUNS */

                    {label:"SP\tsubject pronoun", data:"SP", myColor:ShurleyColors.shurleyPurple},

                    {label:"CSP\tcomp subject pronoun", data:"CSP", myColor:ShurleyColors.shurleyPurple},

                    {label:"OPP\tobject of the prep pronoun", data:"OPP", myColor:ShurleyColors.shurleyPurple},

                    {label:"DO\tdirect object pronoun", data:"DO", myColor:ShurleyColors.shurleyPurple},

                    {label:"IO\tindirect object pronoun", data:"IO", myColor:ShurleyColors.shurleyPurple},

                    {label:"OCP\tobject compliment pronoun", data:"OCP", myColor:ShurleyColors.shurleyPurple},

                    /* VERBS */

                    {label:"V\tverb", data:"V", myColor:ShurleyColors.shurleyRed},

                    {label:"CV\tcomp verb", data:"CV", myColor:ShurleyColors.shurleyRed},

                    {label:"V-t\tverb transitive", data:"V-t", myColor:ShurleyColors.shurleyRed},

                    {label:"CV-t\tcomp verb transitive", data:"CV-t", myColor:ShurleyColors.shurleyRed},

                    {label:"CV\tcompound verb", data:"CV", myColor:ShurleyColors.shurleyRed},

                    {label:"LV\tlinking verb", data:"LV", myColor:ShurleyColors.shurleyRed},

                    /* DESCRIPTIVE */

                    {label:"Adv\tadverb", data:"Adv", myColor:ShurleyColors.shurleyPink},

                    {label:"Adj\tadjective", data:"Adj", myColor:ShurleyColors.shurleyGreen},

                    {label:"CAdj\tcomp adjective", data:"CAdj", myColor:ShurleyColors.shurleyGreen},

                    {label:"PNA\tpos noun adjective", data:"PNA", myColor:ShurleyColors.shurleyGreen},

                    {label:"PPA\tpos pro adjective", data:"PPA", myColor:ShurleyColors.shurleyGreen},

                    {label:"A\tarticle adjective", data:"A", myColor:ShurleyColors.shurleyGreen},

                    {label:"OCA\tobject compliment adjective", data:"OCA", myColor:ShurleyColors.shurleyGreen},

                    {label:"COCA\tcomp object compliment adjective", data:"COCA", myColor:ShurleyColors.shurleyGreen},

                    {label:"PA\tpredicate adjective", data:"PA", myColor:ShurleyColors.shurleyGreen},

                    {label:"CPA\tcomp predicate adjective", data:"CPA", myColor:ShurleyColors.shurleyGreen},

                    /*  */

                    {label:"P\tpreposiiton", data:"P", myColor:ShurleyColors.shurleyOrange},

                    {label:"C\tconjunction", data:"C", myColor:ShurleyColors.shurleyDarkGray},

                    {label:"I\tinterjection", data:"I", myColor:ShurleyColors.shurleyLightGray}

                    );

What I want to do is se the cells of the dropdown to the myColor property in the data provider.

[kglad]

enable their textField.textField background and assign their backgroundColor

[Duke_Boyne]

OK, is textField.textField a property of what exactly?

If I am iterating through the myCombobox.dropdown, which is an object type List, and has a specific length, I still dont know how to get to each "cell" in the dropdown.

[kglad]

your combobox:

myCombobox.textField.textField.background = true;

myCombobox.textField.textField.border = true;

myCombobox.addEventListener(Event.CHANGE,cbF);

function cbF(e:Event):void {

   e.target.textField.textField.backgroundColor = e.target.selectedItem.myColor;

}

[Duke_Boyne]

I don't know if I have explained myself adequately.

I want to programatically change the background of each item in the combobox to a specific color. I have attempted to use the technique you stated above, but all it does is change the background color of the combobox in it's closed state. I need to loop through each element (I am doing this on the OPEN handeler). I can't seem to acess any cell in particular.

[kglad · Accepted solution]

if you want to change the background colors in the list component portion of the combobox, you'll need to use a cellrenderer: http://help.adobe.com/en_US/ActionScript/3.0_UsingComponentsAS3/WS5b3ccc516d4fbf351e63e3d118a9c65b32...

[Duke_Boyne]

That is making my head hurt. Thanks for the link.

[kglad]

i agree.  it's not the easiest thing in the world to use.

[Duke_Boyne]

If you actuallt understand the custom cellRenderer process, could you briefly explain the structure and how implementation works. I have read as many articles as I can find, but I guess I just have a fundamental misunderstanding of where the cellRenderer fits, what it replaces, and how much actual class overwriting/inheritence I am going to have to do.

All I want to do is be able to dynamically change the background color of the fields in a combobox based on values in the dataProvider, and maybe put the row labels into columns based on values in the dataProvider.

example

• i1     item one
• i1a   item one a
• i1b   item one b
• i2     item two
• i3     item three

[Duke_Boyne]

I figured it out. Thanks. It took some fiddling, for sure, but I got ahold of the elements that I needed.

[kglad]

you're welcome.

[Duke_Boyne]

if I try and access the Nth index of dropdown I get this error.

for (var i = 0; i<ddList.length; i++){

                                        trace(ddList)

}

"ReferenceError: Error #1069: Property 0 not found on fl.controls.List and there is no default value."

[Duke_Boyne]

Does that make sense?