Full code after the jump.

View MXML

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<!-- http://blog.flexexamples.com/2007/08/29/launching-new-browser-windows-from-flex/ -->
<mx:Application name="navigateToURL_test"
        xmlns:mx="http://www.adobe.com/2006/mxml"
        layout="vertical"
        verticalAlign="middle"
        backgroundColor="white">
 
    <mx:Script>
        <![CDATA[
            import flash.net.navigateToURL;
 
            private function newWin(url:String):void {
                var urlRequest:URLRequest = new URLRequest(url);
                navigateToURL(urlRequest, String(comboBox.selectedItem));
            }
        ]]>
    </mx:Script>
 
    <mx:ApplicationControlBar dock="true">
        <mx:Label text="window:" />
        <mx:ComboBox id="comboBox">
            <mx:dataProvider>
                <mx:String>_blank</mx:String>
                <mx:String>_top</mx:String>
                <mx:String>CustomName</mx:String>
            </mx:dataProvider>
        </mx:ComboBox>
    </mx:ApplicationControlBar>
 
    <mx:LinkButton label="Go to adobe.com"
            click="newWin('http://www.adobe.com/')" />
 
</mx:Application>

View source is enabled in the following example.

In the previous example you can specify the target window by using the ComboBox control in the docked ApplicationControlBar container at the top. If you specify “_blank”, new windows will be created. If you specify “_top”, the current window will be replaced with the specified URL. If you specify the third option, “CustomName“, a new named window will be created. So clicking the LinkButton control 5 times loads the content into the same window. And of course the CustomName could be anything you wanted. Basically consider this the “target” attribute of an HTML <a> tag (as in <a href="http://www.adobe.com/" target="_blank">Go to adobe.com</a>).

When using the navigateToURL() method, it is important to remember that the method takes a URLRequest object, and not a String object.

 

Full code after the jump.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<mx:Application xmlns:mx="http://www.adobe.com/2006/mxml" layout="horizontal" verticalAlign="middle" backgroundColor="white" creationComplete="init()">

    <mx:Script>
        <![CDATA[
            import mx.collections.ArrayCollection;

            [Bindable]
            private var VARIABLES_URL:String = "params.txt";

            [Bindable]
            private var arrColl:ArrayCollection;

            [Bindable]
            private var paramColl:ArrayCollection;

            private var urlReq:URLRequest;
            private var urlLdr:URLLoader;

            private function init():void {
                /* Initialize the two ArrayCollections objects with empty arrays. */
                arrColl = new ArrayCollection();
                paramColl = new ArrayCollection();

                /* Initialize the URLRequest object with the URL to the file of name/value pairs. */
                urlReq = new URLRequest(VARIABLES_URL);

                /* Initialize the URLLoader object, assign the various event listeners, and load the specified URLRequest object. */
                urlLdr = new URLLoader();
                urlLdr.addEventListener(Event.COMPLETE, doEvent);
                urlLdr.addEventListener(Event.OPEN, doEvent);
                urlLdr.addEventListener(HTTPStatusEvent.HTTP_STATUS, doEvent);
                urlLdr.addEventListener(IOErrorEvent.IO_ERROR, doEvent);
                urlLdr.addEventListener(ProgressEvent.PROGRESS, doEvent);
                urlLdr.addEventListener(SecurityErrorEvent.SECURITY_ERROR, doEvent);
                urlLdr.load(urlReq);
            }

            private function doEvent(evt:Event):void {
                arrColl.addItem({type:evt.type, idx:arrColl.length+1, eventString:evt.toString()});

                switch (evt.type) {
                    case Event.COMPLETE:
                        /* If the load was successful, create a URLVariables object from the URLLoader.data property and populate the paramColl ArrayCollection object. */
                        var ldr:URLLoader = evt.currentTarget as URLLoader;
                        var vars:URLVariables = new URLVariables(ldr.data);
                        var key:String;

                        for (key in vars) {
                            paramColl.addItem({key:key, value:vars[key]});
                        }

                        params.visible = true;
                        break;
                }
            }
        ]]>
    </mx:Script>

    <mx:VBox>
        <mx:Label text="Events:" />
        <mx:DataGrid id="events" dataProvider="{arrColl}" rowCount="5">
            <mx:columns>
                <mx:DataGridColumn dataField="idx" headerText="#" width="20" />
                <mx:DataGridColumn dataField="type" headerText="Type" showDataTips="true" dataTipField="eventString" />
            </mx:columns>
        </mx:DataGrid>
    </mx:VBox>

    <mx:VBox>
        <mx:Label text="Parameters:" />
        <mx:DataGrid id="params" dataProvider="{paramColl}" rowCount="5" visible="false">
            <mx:columns>
                <mx:DataGridColumn dataField="key" headerText="Key" />
                <mx:DataGridColumn dataField="value" headerText="Value" />
            </mx:columns>
        </mx:DataGrid>
    </mx:VBox>

</mx:Application>