Another win for Flex runtime styles: custom branded chat for Dell’s environmental site
April 13th, 2008
A few months ago I wrote about how we used runtime styles to create a custom skin for Fox Searchlight’s movie Juno. Well, now we’ve got another example with a completely different skin but the same underlying code. Dell computer has a site dedicated to environmental issues and they’ve set up a Facebook Graffiti contest where members can show off their artistic talents while expressing what “green” means to them. We’ve integrated our chat into the site so that users can talk about the latest Graffiti submissions and share their thoughts on building a sustainable future. If you’re interested in branded, customized chat rooms, please contact info@chatopica.com or visit www.chatopica.com for more info.
April 13th, 2008 at 10:30 pm
Hello Tom. Nice work on the chat.
I’ve got a question: what do you guys use as a container for the chat messages, do you settle with a List component or use another container? I’ve usually settled with a simple HBox since List gave me too much trouble. Would be interested to get your feedback on that.
April 14th, 2008 at 8:25 am
Hi Stefan,
I ended up using a VBox instead of a List. I wanted to use List so that I would be recycling itemRenderers, but smooth scrolling was more important so I used a VBox instead.
-Tom
April 14th, 2008 at 10:25 am
yeah vbox - of course. Did I say hbox?
I hear you regarding the smooth scrolling. But that aside, I found it really hard to get to grips with variable rowheight in lists too. I can’t remember what it was but something screwed up. Multiline text fields were tricky. I guess what you could do in the vbox (if you don’t do it already) is keep track of children and remove some once they reach a certain level.
In any case, nice job.
April 14th, 2008 at 11:55 am
Thanks, Stefan.
Yeah, variable row height in a List is tricky. The recycling of itemRenderers causes problems with that. I think you have to override set data on your itemRenderer and invalidateSize(). Or something along those lines.
Anyway, removing old items from the VBox is what I do. Someday I plan to try something a little fancier, but this will do for now.
-Tom