notsofast's dashboard

I am willing to share, especially if someone who is really in tune with Flex might take it and clean it up. I pieced it together from what I could learn in a hurry, and it contains several workarounds for things I couldn't figure out but might have simple answers. I have some immediate issues (2 of my machines went belly up on me yesterday, so I'm scrambling), but I'll try to recover the source ASAP. I wouldn't be the right person to maintain your Flex library: my Flex involvement is occasional, fleeting, and superficial.

Bill,

Thanks for diving in and chasing that down!

The Map object is available by the time the creationComplete event on the flex.Map object occurs.

I've had luck with this (where _map is the com.modestmaps.Map object):

_map.addEventListener(MouseEvent.MOUSE_WHEEL, mouseWheelHandler);

function mouseWheelHandler(e:MouseEvent):void {
if (e.delta < 0) {
_map.zoomOut();
}
else if (e.delta > 0) {
_map.zoomIn();
}
}

It appears that the modestmaps.Map object is instantiated later than before. Is there a recommended way to tell when it has been created so I can get the ref to the Map object from the flex.Map object? I was getting it in a callback attached to the Flex app's initialize event, but now it's coming back null.

How soon before flex.Map is updated to match the new constructor and init convention in modestmaps.Map?

My approach is pretty simple:

I created the marker as a MovieClip in Flash, made that into a symbol (called SpotMarkerMC), then exported it as a .swc, and made an ActionScript class (public class SpotMarker extends SpotMarkerMC { ...). In my Flex app, I create instances of modestmaps.Marker that I give to the modestmaps.Map object using putMarker(), and instances of SpotMarker that I attach to the modestmaps.flex.Map object using addChild(). I have callbacks attached to the marker ENTER and LEAVE events that add and remove SpotMarkers from an active list. I have callbacks attached to the ZOOM and PAN events that update the position of each marker in the active list and clip the markers wrt the map boundary, by calling moveMarkers():

private function moveMarkers(event:MapEvent=null):void {
// For each active marker, move it, then see whether its
// visibility needs to be changed.
for (var markerId:String in _activeMarkers) {
var m:Marker = _allMarkers[markerId];
var pt:Point = _map.locationPoint(m.location, _flexMap.map);
var mClip:SpotMarker = _allMarkerClips[m.id];

// put the marker's hotspot at the desired location
mClip.x = pt.x - _markerOrigin.x;
mClip.y = pt.y - _markerOrigin.y;

// When marker leaves the map boundaries, hide it. This can happen
// before it is removed from the map (when its tile goes away).
// The reverse for showing it.
if (mClip.x < 0 || mClip.x > _flexMap.width ||
mClip.y < 0 || mClip.y > _flexMap.height) {
mClip.visible = false;
}
else {
mClip.visible = true;
}
}
}

I'm looking forward to checking out the latest update that was announced. Sounds like it will do more of the work to manage the markers.

As a side note: I spent way too much time trying to figure out the right way to export the Flash MovieClip symbol and make it into a proper Actionscript object. I got very confused trying to make it an actual Flex component. What I have now works as long as I compile it into my Flex app. If I tried to load the map marker symbol dynamically I guess I would have to have some sort of interface class defined so I could call methods on it.

So there you have it. In return, maybe someone can tell me how to get double-click events to come through. I can't seem to get any double-click event from the Map object or any of its containers. I set doubleClickEnabled to true and attach a listener, but nothing happens.