Adding an effect to a TextInput Control

Question

Is there any way to show the text in a TextInput control as though it was being typed in by a user? I have a TextInput defined as follows:
<mx:TextInput id="message2Input"
        width="100%" height="40"
        text="Type Message Here..."
        fontSize="18"
        maxChars="10"
         />
I can change the string value for message2Input.text elsewhere in my mxml application. When I do, that text will be displayed in the control. But it gets displayed in its entirety, instantly. I need to have it displayed as if it was typed for reasons related to a customer demo. So if the string is "Dexter, a very interesting guy", I want it to appear incrementally as
D
D-e
D-e-x
etc etc.
I don't seem to find any control effects for TextInput that allow this when I search the discussion forums. Does anyone have an example where they have done this programmatically? I tried changing message2Input.text within a for loop, "growing" the display text with each loop until the entire string has been "typed in". But I still only see the final complete text string. I suspect this is because the TextInput control only handles one event, and won't loop through a series of re-posts in an event handler. But I'm new to this, and only guessing here.
This is the private function in my Flex mxml app that I use to post the message to the TextInput display:
protected function _insert_chat_item_0(): void
            // this sets the delay to display of the next IM item in the sequence...      
            aoTimers.push(setTimeout(_insert_chat_item_1, 2000));
            // this sets the text that appears in the "I'm typing text" window...
            // TODO: can we make this appear like it is being typed? Have tried everything, with no luck
            message2Input.text = "Dexter, a very interesting guy";
        } // _insert_chat_item_0 for demo: Tom types in his initial message to John
Thanks very much.
-Jim

Answer 1

Try using Jumpeye components. They provide swcs for flex use. Lot of  effects and animations are present.