Flex4 Application state in a custom component

Question

I'm porting my Flex3 app to Flex4 (FlashBuilder4). I get the whole new state concept, except one thing. In a custom component (separate mxml file) I'm using the main level Application's state. In Flex3 it was:

<mx:State name="only_view_mode">
    <mx:RemoveChild target="{myComponent.button1}" />
</mx:State>

In Flex4 it should be something like that :

<mx:State name="only_view_mode" />

and

<mx:LinkButton id="button1" excludeFrom="???" />

My question is: how can I access to an Application state from a component? I checked the official reference ( http://www.adobe.com/go/learn_flex4_alldocumentation_en ) and Google of course but without any success.

Thanks in advance

Answer 1

Try using

FlexGlobals.topLevelApplication.currentState

http://help.adobe.com/en_US/FlashPlatform/reference/actionscript/3/mx/core/FlexGlobals.html?filter_flex=4

Answer 2

That didn't really work since it requires a String. I tried it in every possible way I could figure out. So far I came with this very ugly solution: I add an event listener for checkint state changes of my main level component:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<s:Panel xmlns:fx="http://ns.adobe.com/mxml/2009" 
         xmlns:s="library://ns.adobe.com/flex/spark" 
         xmlns:mx="library://ns.adobe.com/flex/mx" 
         creationComplete="{onCreationComplete();}">
    <fx:Script>
        <![CDATA[
            import mx.core.FlexGlobals;
            import mx.events.StateChangeEvent;
            private function onCreationComplete():void {
                FlexGlobals.topLevelApplication.addEventListener(StateChangeEvent.CURRENT_STATE_CHANGE, onStateChanged);
            }

            private function onStateChanged(event:StateChangeEvent):void {
                currentState = event.newState;
            }
        ]]>
    </fx:Script>
    <s:states>
        <s:State name="default" />
        <s:State name="login" />
    </s:states>
    <s:TextArea includeIn="login"/>
</s:Panel>

Please let me know if there is a better solution. Btw, I have a hunch that the basedOn attribute of State component is the way to go. But don't know what kind of format it expects:

    <s:State name="login" basedOn="???" />