Flex bug? Dynamically changing background color messes up layout!

[corgan1003]

I developed a widget and would like users to be able to customize the colors. For this reason, I have provided a JS external interface to access color properties. Users can also pass in color properties as flash parameters.

When my widget is rendered, it will take a flash parameter for the background color. Setting the background color of my application container to the passed in color parameter screws up my widget layout for some reason. I have actually fixed this by making a call to validateNow() right after I set the new background color.

I thought this was the solution to my problem. Anytime someone used my external interface to change the background color of my widget, I could simply set the backgroundColor property to the new value, and then call validateNow() to force a redraw (I am not worried about this operation being heavy...does not matter in my situation). The strange thing is this does not work.

The first time I set a new background color and call validateNow() like so:

if(applicationParameters.background_color != undefined){
     background_color = applicationParameters.background_color;
}else{
     background_color = 0xffffff; //default
}
this.validateNow();

the layout is fixed. But after that first time, if a user accesses my external interface:

public function setBackgroundColor(rgb:String):void {
    background_color = uint(rgb);
    this.validateNow();
    trace("changing back ground color to: " + background_color);
}

and submits a color change, validateNow() does not fix the issue

Can anyone even point me in the right direction on how to solve this issue? I am really stuck

Thank you!

[fathwad]

backgroundColor is a style, not a property.

Try this:

setStyle("backgroundColor",0x0000ff);

[fathwad]

Oh, and, calling validateNow() would be unnecessary.

[corgan1003]

I was using the term "property" loosely. For my code, calling setStyle does the same thing as setting the variable "backgroundColor" because that variable is binded to the VBox component backgroundColor style. This is the mxml:

<mx:VBox id="application_container" width="100%" height="100%" verticalGap="0" paddingLeft="2" paddingBottom="2" paddingRight="2" paddingTop="2" backgroundColor="{background_color}" >

Anyway, I removed the binding and set the backgroundColor explicitly with setStyle as you suggested, but it made no difference.

Also, I am not sure why validateNow() was fixing the layout the first time I called it, but it certainly was.

Any other thoughts as to why changing the backgroundColor would mess up my widget layout?

Thanks

[fathwad]

That is quite strange. The only thing I can think of is that if you do not have a background color, you may have a different size as compared to when you have a background color set. This may potentially screw up your layout. That said, it seems this isn't your issue...