Formatting AdvancedDataGrid Cells

Question

Hi,

I have a quick question about rendering the advanceddatagrid cells.

I need to programatically color the cell of the datagrid based on the conditions. Lets say, the stock quotes. If there is an increase from the previous day, I need to have the cell colored in GREEN and in RED, when there is a decrease.

Now, the important part here is, I need to do these things dynamically, which means, when the user enables the comparison/conditions, then the cells are colored. And when the user disables the comparison, then it again goes back to its default behavior.

I know I have to use renderers. But not sure, how to use it for the cells and that too dynamically. Can anyone please explain how to go for it?

Thanks

Answer 1

Item renderers are components used to define the appearance of a component's "items" or subcomponents. In the case of the ADG, the "items" are the individual cells. You can create a completely custom class to function as the renderer (given it implements certain required interfaces) or, in most cases, you extend an existing component. Since the default renderer for ADG cells doesn't support background colors, you have to create or extend a component that does and use that as the renderer. That is the basic premise that these tutorials, linked to in the following question, work from:

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/748213/setting-background-color-for-datagrid-row-in-adobe-flex/748342#748342

After creating an itemRenderer that supports a background color, you have two options as to where you can define your "conditions"; inside of the itemRenderer or using the ADG's styleFunction (additionally requiring that your itemRenderer defines a "background" style).

In your case, you could include both today's and yesterday's stock price values in the data sent to each cell and compare the two to determine the color used to draw the background. Again, more on that in the tutorial links provided above. In either the itemRenderer or the styleFunction, you would compare properties on the itemRenderer's/styleFunction's data object (corresponding to the row you're looking at), e.g.:

if(data.today > data.yesterday)
{
    // set color or return style
}
else ...

To "toggle" custom cell colors, switch between your custom renderer and the default (colorless) renderer. In other words, set the itemRenderer property to your custom itemRenderer class when you need display the colors and set it to "null" when you want the "default behavior".