Flex Examples

The following example shows how you can skin the ButtonBar control in Flex by setting the buttonStyleName style and setting one or more of the following skin styles: skin, upSkin, overSkin, downSkin, disabledSkin.

Full code after the jump.

View MXML

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<!-- http://blog.flexexamples.com/2008/01/10/setting-skins-on-the-the-flex-buttonbar-control/ -->
<mx:Application xmlns:mx="http://www.adobe.com/2006/mxml"
        layout="vertical"
        verticalAlign="middle"
        backgroundColor="white">

    <mx:Style>
        ButtonBar {
            buttonStyleName: myCustomButtonStyleName;
            color: #999999;
        }

        .myCustomButtonStyleName {
            skin: Embed(source="assets/ButtonBarSkins.swf",
                        symbol="ButtonBarButton_skin");
        }
    </mx:Style>

    <mx:Script>
        <![CDATA[
            import mx.events.SliderEvent;

            private function slider_change(evt:SliderEvent):void {
                buttonBar.setStyle("buttonHeight", evt.value);
            }
        ]]>
    </mx:Script>

    <mx:Array id="arr">
        <mx:Object label="Button" />
        <mx:Object label="ButtonBar" />
        <mx:Object label="ColorPicker" />
        <mx:Object label="ComboBox" />
    </mx:Array>

    <mx:ApplicationControlBar dock="true">
        <mx:Form styleName="plain">
            <mx:FormItem label="buttonHeight:">
                <mx:HSlider id="slider"
                        minimum="24"
                        maximum="64"
                        snapInterval="1"
                        tickInterval="4"
                        liveDragging="true"
                        change="slider_change(event);" />
            </mx:FormItem>
        </mx:Form>
    </mx:ApplicationControlBar>

    <mx:ButtonBar id="buttonBar"
            dataProvider="{arr}" />

</mx:Application>

View source is enabled in the following example.

For simplicity sake, I only set the generic “skin” style which applies to all states (up, over, down, and disabled). You will also notice that we embedded a skin from a SWF file and the skins various scale grid settings (scaleGridTop, scaleGridBottom, scaleGridLeft, and scaleGridRight) are set in the FLA/SWF file and not in the MXML file itself. This allows you to resize the ButtonBar control without distorting the 2 pixel border on the bottom of the skin.