Setting alternating item colors on a Spark DropDownList control in Flex 4

By Peter deHaan On August 8, 2009 · 4 Comments

The following example shows how you can set alternating item colors on a Spark DropDownList control in Flex 4 by setting the alternatingItemColors style.

Full code after the jump.

The following example(s) require Flash Player 10 and the Adobe Flex 4 SDK. To download the Adobe Flash Builder 4 trial, see http://www.adobe.com/products/flex/. To download the latest nightly build of the Flex 4 SDK, see http://opensource.adobe.com/wiki/display/flexsdk/Download+Flex+4.
For more information on getting started with Flex 4 and Flash Builder 4, see the official Adobe Flex Team blog.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<!-- http://blog.flexexamples.com/2009/08/08/setting-alternating-item-colors-on-a-spark-dropdownlist-control-in-flex-4/ -->
<s:Application name="Spark_DropDownList_alternatingItemColors_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">
 
    <s:DropDownList id="dropDownList"
            alternatingItemColors="[#EEEEEE,#DFDFDF]"
            requireSelection="true"
            width="100"
            horizontalCenter="0"
            top="40"
            creationComplete="dropDownList.openDropDown();">
        <s:dataProvider>
            <s:ArrayList source="[The,Quick,Brown,Fox,Jumps,Over,The,Lazy,Dog]" />
        </s:dataProvider>
    </s:DropDownList>
 
</s:Application>

View source is enabled in the following example.

You can also set the alternatingItemColors style in an external .CSS file or <Style/> block, as seen in the following example:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<!-- http://blog.flexexamples.com/2009/08/08/setting-alternating-item-colors-on-a-spark-dropdownlist-control-in-flex-4/ -->
<s:Application name="Spark_DropDownList_alternatingItemColors_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:Style>
        @namespace s "library://ns.adobe.com/flex/spark";
        @namespace mx "library://ns.adobe.com/flex/halo";
 
        s|DropDownList {
            alternatingItemColors: #EEEEEE,#DFDFDF;
        }
    </fx:Style>
 
    <s:DropDownList id="dropDownList"
            requireSelection="true"
            width="100"
            horizontalCenter="0"
            top="40"
            creationComplete="dropDownList.openDropDown();">
        <s:dataProvider>
            <s:ArrayList source="[The,Quick,Brown,Fox,Jumps,Over,The,Lazy,Dog]" />
        </s:dataProvider>
    </s:DropDownList>
 
</s:Application>

Or you can set the alternatingItemColors style using ActionScript, as seen in the following example:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<!-- http://blog.flexexamples.com/2009/08/08/setting-alternating-item-colors-on-a-spark-dropdownlist-control-in-flex-4/ -->
<s:Application name="Spark_DropDownList_alternatingItemColors_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:Script>
        <![CDATA[
            protected function btn_click(evt:MouseEvent):void {
                dropDownList.setStyle("alternatingItemColors", [0xEEEEEE, 0xDFDFDF]);
                dropDownList.openDropDown();
            }
        ]]>
    </fx:Script>
 
    <s:Button id="btn"
            label="Set alternating item colors"
            click="btn_click(event);"
            left="10" top="10" />
 
    <s:DropDownList id="dropDownList"
            requireSelection="true"
            width="100"
            horizontalCenter="0"
            top="40"
            creationComplete="dropDownList.openDropDown();">
        <s:dataProvider>
            <s:ArrayList source="[The,Quick,Brown,Fox,Jumps,Over,The,Lazy,Dog]" />
        </s:dataProvider>
    </s:DropDownList>
 
</s:Application>

Finally, the following example shows how you can use the alternatingItemColors style with a Spark DropDownList control with a multicolumn TileLayout layout:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<!-- http://blog.flexexamples.com/2009/08/08/setting-alternating-item-colors-on-a-spark-dropdownlist-control-in-flex-4/ -->
<s:Application name="Spark_DropDownList_alternatingItemColors_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">
 
    <s:DropDownList id="dropDownList"
            alternatingItemColors="[#EEEEEE,#DFDFDF]"
            requireSelection="true"
            width="200"
            horizontalCenter="0"
            top="40"
            creationComplete="dropDownList.openDropDown();">
        <s:dataProvider>
            <s:ArrayList source="[The,Quick,Brown,Fox,Jumps,Over,The,Lazy,Dog]" />
        </s:dataProvider>
        <s:layout>
            <s:TileLayout horizontalGap="0" verticalGap="0"
                    columnWidth="80" rowHeight="60"
                    requestedRowCount="2" />
        </s:layout>
    </s:DropDownList>
 
</s:Application>

View source is enabled in the following example.

This entry is based on a beta version of the Flex 4 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 4 SDK.

About The Author

Peter deHaan

Peter deHaan currently works for Adobe on the Flex SDK QA team. While not working on Flex, Flash, and ColdFusion applications, Peter enjoys making up bios and writing in 3rd person. Peter's rarely updated blog can be found at blogs.adobe.com/pdehaan/, actionscriptexamples.com, airexamples.com, and coldfusionexamples.com.

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4 Responses to Setting alternating item colors on a Spark DropDownList control in Flex 4

adrian says:

August 9, 2009 at 11:17 am

hi, great examples! By the way, do you know how to add easing when DropDownList opens?

Reply
harekrushna says:

December 27, 2010 at 11:39 pm

but how can i implement it into aspx page in dotet

Reply
- Peter deHaan says:
  
  December 28, 2010 at 11:07 am
  
  This is Flex/SWF and shouldn’t matter if you’re using HTML or ASPX or any other server side technology.
  
  Peter
  
  Reply
ilikeflex says:

May 8, 2011 at 11:03 pm

Hi
I am using the halo themes and how do i set the alternating item colors style. I get warning saying ‘alternating item colors is only supported by Spark Theme’

Thanks
ilikeflex

Reply