Weird behavior of custom item renderer in Flex 4

Question

I have a class defined like this:

public class Photo
    {
        public function Photo()
        {
        }
        public var PhotoId:int;
        public var Title :String;
        public var Subtitle :String;
        public var PhotoByteArray:ByteArray ;
        public var ThumbnailByteArray:ByteArray;
        public var ShowOnlyInFrontpageTop:Boolean;
        public var ShowInFrontpageGroup:Boolean;
        public var BackgroundColorGradientFrom:String;
        public var BackgroundColorGradientTo:String;
        public var IsActive :Boolean;
    }

I 'm getting diverse objects of this type (Photo) from a WCF service (works fine!). These objects are stored in an ArrayCollection defined like this:

public static var GroupPhotos:ArrayCollection = new ArrayCollection();

I want to show up these photos using as:List component, like this:

<s:List height="110" id="GroupPhotos" itemRenderer="MyGroupPhotoRenderer">
                <s:layout >
                    <s:HorizontalLayout requestedColumnCount="3"  />
                </s:layout>
            </s:List>

The item renderer is defined this way:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<s:ItemRenderer xmlns:fx="http://ns.adobe.com/mxml/2009" 
                xmlns:s="library://ns.adobe.com/flex/spark" 
                xmlns:mx="library://ns.adobe.com/flex/mx" 
                autoDrawBackground="true"
                creationComplete="onItemrenderer_creationCompleteHandler(event)">
    <fx:Script>
        <![CDATA[
            import mx.controls.Alert;
            import mx.events.FlexEvent;

            //when the item has been rendered and is ready to be shown the following method will be called
            protected function onItemrenderer_creationCompleteHandler(event:FlexEvent):void
            {               
                img.source =  data.ThumbnailByteArray;
            }

        ]]>
    </fx:Script>

    <s:Group id="PhotoGroup" width="297" height="110" >
        <!--<s:Rect id="imgRectangle" alpha="0" width="95" height="65">
            <s:stroke>
                <s:LinearGradientStroke weight="{GroupBoxBorderWeight}" scaleMode="none"/>
            </s:stroke>
        </s:Rect>-->
        <mx:Image id="img"  
                  width="{PhotoGroup.width}" height="{PhotoGroup.height}" 
                  />
        <s:Label id="title"                  
                 fontSize="20" 
                 text="{data.Title}"/>
    </s:Group>
</s:ItemRenderer>

The s:Label component shows up correctly whereas the mx:Image component shows up always the same image (don't know if this is the first Image or the last in the array). What am i missing? Thanks in advance

Answer 1

Ahhm!!Turns out that this my error! Above i stated that the service is running fine: guess what...it didn't! Fixing the service made the images show up correctly!

Answer 2

Creation complete is only called the first time your renderer is created. Since Flex reuses renderers that means it will only get called the first time. Instead of using creationComplete , override the set data method of your renderer. Unfortunately, s:ItemRenderer doesn't have a set data method, so I'd use a mx:HBox component instead.

Here's a quick example to get you started:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<mx:HBox xmlns:fx="http://ns.adobe.com/mxml/2009" 
             xmlns:s="library://ns.adobe.com/flex/spark" 
             xmlns:mx="library://ns.adobe.com/flex/mx">
    <fx:Script>
        <![CDATA[

            override public function set data(value:Object):void
            {
                super.data = value;

                theLabel.text = value["Title"].toString();
                theImage.source = data.ThumbnailByteArray;

                validateDisplayList();
            }

        ]]>
    </fx:Script>
    <mx:Label id="theLabel" />
    <mx:Image id="theImage" />
</mx:HBox>