Setting a fade transition on a Spark DropDownList component in Flex Gumbo

The following example shows how you can fade in a Spark DropDownList pop up menu in Flex Gumbo by creating a custom DropDownList skin and setting the transitions property to a transition Fade effect.

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/2009/04/28/setting-a-fade-transition-on-a-spark-dropdownlist-component-in-flex-gumbo/ -->
<s:Application name="Spark_DropDownList_transitions_test"
        xmlns:fx="http://ns.adobe.com/mxml/2009"
        xmlns:s="library://ns.adobe.com/flex/spark"
        xmlns:mx="library://ns.adobe.com/flex/halo">

    <fx:Declarations>
        <s:ArrayList id="arrList"
                source="[Red,Orange,Yellow,Green,Blue]" />
    </fx:Declarations>

    <s:DropDownList id="dropDownList"
            dataProvider="{arrList}"
            requiresSelection="true"
            skinClass="skins.CustomDropDownListSkin"
            horizontalCenter="0"
            top="20" />

</s:Application>

The custom Spark DropDownList skin, CustomDropDownListSkin.mxml, is as follows:

View skins/CustomDropDownListSkin.mxml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<!-- http://blog.flexexamples.com/2009/04/28/setting-a-fade-transition-on-a-spark-dropdownlist-component-in-flex-gumbo/ -->
<s:SparkSkin name="CustomDropDownListSkin"
        xmlns:fx="http://ns.adobe.com/mxml/2009"
        xmlns:s="library://ns.adobe.com/flex/spark"
        alpha.disabled="0.5">
    <s:states>
        <s:State name="normal" />
        <s:State name="open" />
        <s:State name="disabled" />
    </s:states>
    <s:transitions>
        <s:Transition fromState="normal" toState="open">
            <s:Fade target="{popup}" duration="3000" />
        </s:Transition>
    </s:transitions>

    <!-- host component -->
    <fx:Metadata>
        <![CDATA[
            [HostComponent("spark.components.DropDownList")]
        ]]>
    </fx:Metadata>

    <!--- Defines the appearance of the DropDownList component's drop down area. -->
    <s:PopUp id="popup"
            open.normal="false" open.open="true"
            includeIn="open"
            left="0" right="0" top="0" bottom="0"
            visible.open="true" visible.normal="false"
            placement="below">
        <s:Group id="dropDown"
                maxHeight="134" minHeight="22"
                visible.open="true" visible.normal="false">
            <!-- border -->
            <s:Rect left="0" right="0" top="0" bottom="0">
                <s:stroke>
                    <s:SolidColorStroke color="0x686868" weight="1"/>
                </s:stroke>
            </s:Rect>

            <!--- fill --->
            <s:Rect id="background" left="1" right="1" top="1" bottom="1" >
                <s:fill>
                    <s:SolidColor id="bgFill" color="0xFFFFFF" />
                </s:fill>
            </s:Rect>

            <s:Scroller left="1" top="1" right="1" bottom="1" >
                <s:DataGroup id="dataGroup" itemRenderer="spark.skins.default.DefaultItemRenderer">
                    <s:layout>
                        <s:VerticalLayout gap="0" horizontalAlign="contentJustify"/>
                    </s:layout>
                </s:DataGroup>
            </s:Scroller>

            <s:filters>
                <s:DropShadowFilter blurX="20" blurY="20" distance="5" angle="90" alpha="0.6" />
            </s:filters>
        </s:Group>
    </s:PopUp>

    <s:Button id="button" left="0" right="0" top="0" bottom="0" focusEnabled="false"
        skinClass="spark.skins.default.DropDownListButtonSkin" />
    <s:SimpleText id="labelElement" verticalAlign="middle"
        left="7" right="30" top="2" bottom="2" verticalCenter="1" />

</s:SparkSkin>

View source is enabled in the following example.

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.