Creating multicolumn text in an FxTextArea control in Flex Gumbo

The following example shows how you can create multicolumn text in a Flex Gumbo FxTextArea control by setting the columnCount style.

Full code after the jump.

To use the following code, you must have Flash Player 10 and a Flex Gumbo SDK installed in your Flex Builder 3. For more information on downloading and installing the Gumbo SDK into Flex Builder 3, see “Using the beta Gumbo SDK in Flex Builder 3″.

View MXML

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<!-- http://blog.flexexamples.com/2008/11/12/creating-multicolumn-text-in-an-fxtextarea-control-in-flex-gumbo/ -->
<FxApplication name="FxTextArea_columnCount_test"
        xmlns="http://ns.adobe.com/mxml/2009">
    <layout>
        <VerticalLayout />
    </layout>

    <FxTextArea id="textArea"
            columnCount="2"
            columnGap="16"
            textAlign="justify"
            marginTop="10"
            horizontalScrollPolicy="off"
            width="100%"
            height="100%">
        <content><String source="data/lorem.txt" /></content>
    </FxTextArea>

</FxApplication>

View source is enabled in the following example.

Due to popular demand, here is the “same” example in a more ActionScript friendly format:

View MXML

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<!-- http://blog.flexexamples.com/2008/11/12/creating-multicolumn-text-in-an-fxtextarea-control-in-flex-gumbo/ -->
<FxApplication name="FxTextArea_columnCount_test"
        xmlns="http://ns.adobe.com/mxml/2009"
        initialize="init();">
    <layout>
        <VerticalLayout />
    </layout>

    <Script>
        <![CDATA[
            import flashx.textLayout.formats.TextAlign;
            import mx.components.FxTextArea;
            import mx.core.ScrollPolicy;

            [Embed(source="data/lorem.txt",
                    mimeType="application/octet-stream")]
            private var lorem:Class;

            private var textArea:FxTextArea;

            private function init():void {
                textArea = new FxTextArea();
                textArea.content = new lorem();
                textArea.setStyle("columnCount", 2);
                textArea.setStyle("columnGap", 16);
                textArea.setStyle("textAlign", TextAlign.JUSTIFY);
                textArea.setStyle("marginTop", 10);
                textArea.horizontalScrollPolicy = ScrollPolicy.OFF;
                textArea.percentWidth = 100;
                addItem(textArea);
            }
        ]]>
    </Script>

</FxApplication>

This entry is based on a beta version of the Flex Gumbo SDK and therefore is very likely to change as development of the Flex SDK continues. The API can (and will) change causing examples to possibly not compile in newer versions of the Flex Gumbo SDK.