Problem You want to format data that is displayed via data binding. Solution Use a formatter. Discussion Although standard data binding may work in many cases, there are at least as many cases in which you'll want to display the data in a slightly different manner than what is returned. For example, you may use an XMLConnector component to load the following XML document: <book> <title>ActionScript Cookbook</title> <authors>Joey Lott</authors> </book>
If you want to display both the title and the authors in a text area component, you'll have to apply formatting that tells Flash how to display the data. When you assign values to the settings of a binding in the Bindings tab of the Component Inspector panel, there are two parameters for formatting called formatter and formatter options. The formatter parameter is set to none by default, and when the formatter parameter is set to none the formatter options is grayed out. However, you can apply formatting by selecting a new value for the formatter parameter. The options are as follows:
Boolean -
Converts strings to Boolean values.
Compose String -
Allows you to make a string value that is composed of a combination of string literal values and field values.
Custom Formatter -
The custom formatter option requires advanced ActionScript to implement, and it is not discussed in detail in this book.
Date -
When a date value is returned, you can format that value in a user-friendly format.
Rearrange Fields -
Use the rearrange fields formatter when you want to compose a new object utilizing the values from the original object. The original value must be an object, and the target must also require an object.
Number Formatter -
Defines how many fractional digits to display. Each formatter type allows you to define different formatter options:
Boolean -
Specifies which string values should get converted to the Boolean values true and false.
Compose String -
A string that can use string literal text as well as fields from the original value. Use <fieldName> to indicate field placeholders. For example, if you apply a binding for a schema field with nested fields title and authors, you can use the following template: The title is <title> and the author(s) is/are <authors>.
Date -
You can compose a string in which MM stands for the month, DD stands for the date of the month, YY stands for the year in two-digit format, YYYY stands for the year in four-digit format, HH stands for the hours, NN stands for the minutes, and SS stands for the seconds. |
