Quick Blog (Use mx:Form)
I have been too busy to blog over the past couple months and this is more of a note than a blog entry. I have come across a few applications in the past 6 months that had your standard CRUD forms.
The problem is that most of them used HBOX and VBOX in attempt to align Labels and TextInput items. ACKKK! These can significantly increase the size of your swf after compile in Flex Builder. For form layout you can almost always use mx:Form. The feature set behind this tag is very intuitive as well.
I've seen developers write code to handle key press of the enter key in an effort to trigger the firing of a default button on the form. This is incorporated in the mx:Form tag also; you just point to the button via the defaultButton property. The default button will fire when you click enter key on text input items.
I have attached a simple example of mx:Form with a default button displaying an alert. Hope this helps and check out the language reference for more info as I didn't touch on all features: mx:Form
Sample App:
<mx:Application xmlns:mx="http://www.adobe.com/2006/mxml" layout="absolute" viewSourceURL="srcview/index.html">
<mx:Script>
<![CDATA[
import mx.controls.Alert;
private function showAlert(event:MouseEvent):void
{
Alert.show('You submitted the form dude. ' + 'Form Data: ' + formField.text );
}
]]>
</mx:Script>
<mx:Form x="0" y="0" width="447" height="488" defaultButton="{submitButton}">
<mx:Label id="exampleForm" text="Example Form" />
<mx:FormItem id="lblFormField" label="Form Field:">
<mx:TextInput id="formField" enabled="true" cornerRadius="4" text="Default text." toolTip="Enter some text."/>
</mx:FormItem>
<mx:FormItem width="409" height="25">
<mx:Button id="submitButton" label="Submit" click="showAlert(event)"/>
</mx:FormItem>
</mx:Form>
</mx:Application>
