Creating custom design-time preview for Flex 3 components

Sometimes it is necessary to create custom preview of the component in the Flex Builder “Design” view.
It is undocumented feature ;-)
I’ve found very interesting class in the Flex SDK 3: mx.core.UIComponentGlobals.

This class contains static field designMode:Boolean.

Just check that field in your component code.
You can download example component with the source code from here:
http://anychart.com/tips_and_tricks/designMode/DesignModeComponent.zip

Also you can download the usage sample:
http://anychart.com/tips_and_tricks/designMode/DesignModeComponentSample.zip

Running in the Flex Builder “Design” mode it shows AnyChart image. But when it runs in the flash player it shows only gray rectangle.

This entry was posted on Friday, February 29th, 2008 at 10:26 pm by Alex Batsuev and is filed under Flex, Flash platform, Tips and tricks. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

3 Responses to “Creating custom design-time preview for Flex 3 components”

  1. ivan Says:
    May 5th, 2008 at 6:19 am

    hello. do i need to compile component to swc to get a result or no?

  2. Alex Batsuev Says:
    June 5th, 2008 at 11:45 pm

    Yes.

  3. GallantGifts Says:
    February 1st, 2009 at 10:00 pm

    I just found your post and am going to share it with my developer.
    Thanks…

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