Help with Dynamic Objects

Question

Hi All,
New to Flex and wanted to get some help from the public.
Basically, here's what I want to do.
I have a tab navigator with multiple tabs. Each tab has a
datagrid on it. When you click the tab, the grid should update to
new data based on the tab clicked. That's no problem. The problem
I'm running into is that because the data is taking a while to
retreive from the server, users are getting the previous's tabs
datagrid until the information is updated. I wanted to do two
things:
1) Change the cursor to a "thinking" or "processing" icon
where clicks can't be done until the full data has been retreived
and updated. This is a nice to have; i haven't the slightlest clue
on how to accomplish this.
2) In lieu/addition to #1, i wanted the datagrid to be
dynamic. Meaning, if you go to the tab, it'll add dynamically the
datagrid to the tab and then show the data.
Here's my code, but it doesn't work very well. Any help i can
get from you guys would be great:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<mx:Application xmlns:mx="
http://www.adobe.com/2006/mxml"
layout="horizontal" initialize="createDataGrid()">
<mx:Script>
<![CDATA[
import mx.controls.DataGrid;
import mx.managers.PopUpManager;
import mx.collections.ArrayCollection;
import mx.controls.Alert;
import mx.rpc.events.ResultEvent;
import mx.containers.HBox;
import mx.containers.TabNavigator;
[Bindable]
private var infoDataGrid:ArrayCollection;
[Bindable]
private var currentID:String;
[Bindable]
private var dynDataGrid:DataGrid;
private function createDataGrid():void {
dynDataGrid = new DataGrid;
dynDataGrid.dataProvider=infoDataGrid;
dynDataGrid.width=80;
private function getDataFromServer(event:ResultEvent):void {
var numOfRecords:int = event.result.result_set.num_rows;
if (numOfRecords > 0 ) {
infoDataGrid = event.result.result_set.results.result as
ArrayCollection;
} else {
// no information retrieved worry about this later
private function mainBuilder( event:Event ):void {
var tabNavigator:TabNavigator = TabNavigator( event.target
var pattern:RegExp = /\D/gi;
if (tabNavigator.selectedChild.id != "NewTab") {
// Remove all non-digits from LID
var str:String = tabNavigator.selectedChild.id;
currentID=(str.replace(pattern, ""));
phpHTTPService.send();
// loop through all children and remove any datagrids while
adding to the current one
for (y=0; y<tabNavigator.numChildren; y++) {
var tmpNavID:String = tabNavigator.childDescriptors[y].id
if ((tmpNavID == tabNavigator.selectedChild.id) &&
(tmpNavID != "")) {
// this does not work as intended...
tabNavigator.selectedChild.addChild(dynDataGrid);
} else {
// this does not work.
//How do you access something directly with an ID but
represented by a variable?
// tmpNavID.removeChildAt(0);
} else {
// New Tab selected, do something here
]]>
</mx:Script>
<mx:HTTPService id="phpHTTPService"
url="/flex/php/AssetsInLocation.php" useProxy="false" method="GET"
result="getDataFromServer(event)">
<mx:request xmlns="">
<lid>{currentID}</lid>
</mx:request>
</mx:HTTPService>
<mx:TabNavigator id="tabNav"
creationComplete="tabNav.selectedIndex=0;mainBuilder(event)"
width="100%" change="mainBuilder(event);">
<mx:HBox id="LID2345" label="Tab 1" width="100%"
height="100%" horizontalAlign="center">
<!-- <mx:DataGrid dataProvider="{infoDataGrid}"
width="80%"/> -->
</mx:HBox>
<mx:HBox id="LID1111" label="Tab 2" width="100%"
height="100%" horizontalAlign="center">
<!-- <mx:DataGrid dataProvider="{infoDataGrid}"
width="80%"/> -->
</mx:HBox>
<mx:HBox id="LID1234" label="Tab 3" width="100%"
height="100%" horizontalAlign="center">
<!-- <mx:DataGrid dataProvider="{infoDataGrid}"
width="80%"/> -->
</mx:HBox>
<mx:Canvas id="NewTab" label="New..." width="100%"
height="100%">
</mx:Canvas>
</mx:TabNavigator>
</mx:Application>
Thanks all for your assistance.

Answer 1

I think Ned is on the right track, but the specific form of
the command may be off. If the ProgressEvent handler is defined on
MC_Holder_Image, then the command to get the
MC_Holder_Preload_TextField object should be something like:
var oTextField:TextField =
this.parent.parent.MC_Holder_Preload.getChildByName(childname);
oTextField.text = "some text";
The first "parent" references MC_Holder_Sprite, the second
MC_Holder. If there are several instances of MC_Holder_Preload,
then the above would have to be modified to account for that by
first using the getChildByName method to acquire the appropriate
instance like so:
var oMC:MovieClip =
this.parent.parent.getChildByName(HolderPreloadName);
var oTextField:TextField = oMC.getChildByName(TextFieldName);
Hope this (a) makes sense, (b) helps and (c) actually works.
Regards
Dave Spaar