Dispatching Event in ItemRenderer Component?

Question

Am I going about this the right way? Here's my situation:
I have a custom itemRenderer for a List. This itemRenderer consists mainly of a checkbox and label, but has a few additional details in it (which is why I'm not using a drop-in itemRenderer). I want to detect when the selection of the checkbox changes, so I was thinking of creating a custom event in the itemRenderer and then bubbling it up to the list.
Or is there a way I can detect when a user checks a checkbox from the lists itself?
Thanks!

Answer 1

I found this article which explains this topic very well also: http://weblogs.macromedia.com/pent/archives/2008/03/itemrenderers_p_2.html
(It appears that these may be referencing the same series of articles on different sites.)
However, I am now conflicted, because if I the version without bubbling, I am tying the itemRenderer directly to my component; whereas with bubbling I don't need to make that association. I may opt for the bubbling route after all, because I want to keep my itemRenderers generic enough to use in any of my custom controls, and not just in a certain type.
For more clarification: the hangup is where the event gets triggered on the listData.owner. To do this, it appears that it must be type-cast first, and then manipulated. Any ideas on how to get around that? Here's Peter's example:
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First, you have to add metadata to the CatalogList control to let the compiler know the control dispatches the event:
     import events.BuyBookEvent;
     import mx.controls.TileList;
     [Event(name="buyBook",type="events.BuyBookEvent")]
     public class CatalogList extends TileList
Second, add a function to CatalogList to dispatch the event. This function will be called by the itemRenderer instances:
          public function dispatchBuyEvent( item:Object ) : void
               var event:BuyBookEvent = new BuyBookEvent();
               event.bookData = item;
               dispatchEvent( event );
Third, change the Buy button code in the itemRenderer to invoke the function:
               <mx:Button label="Buy" fillColors="[0x99ff99,0x99ff99]">
                    <mx:click>
                    <![CDATA[
                         (listData.owner as CatalogList).dispatchBuyEvent(data);
                    ]]>
                    </mx:click>
               </mx:Button>
Now the Button in the itemRenderer can simply invoke a function in the list control with the data for the record (or anything else that is appropriate for the action) and pass the responsibility of interfacing with the rest fo the application onto the list control.
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