Controling a dataProvider result using a mx:HSlider...

Question

Hi
Hi I am a basic Flex 2 application showing the results and
times for races and the individual runners in each race etc….
within my application I am using a remote object acting as my
dataProvider communicating with ColdFusion and a CFC file
containing different functions for the different races:
<mx:RemoteObject id="RO_dataprovider"
destination="ColdFusion" source="myCFC">
<mx:method name="getDataStruct" result="handleResult_
getDataStruct (event)" fault="Alert.show(event.fault.message)"/>
</mx:RemoteObject>
With the following actionScript:
<mx:Script>
<![CDATA[
import mx.rpc.events.ResultEvent;
[Bindable]
public var structResult:Object;
public function handleResult_ getDataStruct
(event:ResultEvent):void {
structResult=event.result as Object;
]]>
</mx:Script>
I have various dataGrids and charts (lineCharts, barCharts,
pieCharts etc) in the application – all using this same
dataProvider:
<mx:DataGrid id="cfcs_dg" width="100%"
dataProvider="{structResult.RACE1}">
<mx:columns>
<mx:DataGridColumn headerText="Competitor"
dataField="comp"/>
<mx:DataGridColumn headerText="Start Time"
dataField="starttime"/>
<mx:DataGridColumn headerText="End Time"
dataField="endtime"/>
<mx:DataGridColumn headerText="Total Time"
dataField="totaltime"/>
</mx:columns>
</mx:DataGrid>
and:
<mx:LineChart id="race1_lc"
dataProvider="{structResult.RACE1}" width="100%">
<mx:horizontalAxis>
<mx:CategoryAxis dataProvider="{structResult.RACE1}"
categoryField="totaltime"/> </mx:horizontalAxis>
<mx:series> <mx:LineSeries yField="totaltime"
displayName="Total Time Taken"/> </mx:series>
</mx:LineChart>
<mx:Legend dataProvider="{race1_lc}"/>
As you can imagine – if a race has lets say 400+ races
in it (like a marathon for example) then a lot of data is going to
be displayed within the charts (which is what I want) therefore
making them complicated and in some cases complex and difficult to
read / understand….
However – I thought that I could include something to
control (allow the user to control) the data and amount to view at
one time that is coming from the dataProvider.
In this case I want to control the total time
“totaltime” entity so for example the user can choose
to only show data for the racers that finished the race within 60
seconds – therefore not showing any of the slower times or
data etc….
I also thought a nice solution / possibility to this would be
to somehow (and this is my problem) link my dataProvider to a
slider or timeline: e.g. <mx:Hslider/> and control the
“totaltime” displayed at any one time in the graphs /
dataGrids using this slider.
So my question is: is this actually possible to do, and if so
could anyone give me some advice about how to go about doing it
– or point me in the right direction???
Much appreciated,
Thanks,
Jon.

Answer 1

hi Jon,
I faced the similar situation , only difference being, I was
using webservice instead of Coldfusion as my dataprovider. This
weservice was storing the data in XMl form. I had 2 options
1. Use a filter function on the fetched XML
2. use a querry in the webservice so that filtered data is
collected.
If your data is coming in XML format, then you can filter out
required data using a function.
I did something like this
<mx:HSlider width="124" tickInterval="5" labels="[0,120]"
id="totExp" values="0" maximum="120" snapInterval="5"
showTrackHighlight="true"
change="shoot();"
toolTip="Total Experience in months" />
Here shoot is the function which has the code to filter data
from the file.
I hope this may give you a lil bit of direction.
Rahul