Dec 12 2009
uiWindow: Background Drop Shadow + Glow Effect
The default behavior of the uiWindow container is to cast a drop shadow when it is active in the foreground, and not do so when it is inactive or when it is maximized to fill the stage. This behavior is determined by the component instance’s background property value.
Default Shadow
The following is the default background property value for all uiWindow instances:
{shadow_up:0x000000, shadow_up_maximized:-1};
That tells the instance it should render a drop shadow of color 0×000000 when its visual state is “up”, and not render any drop shadow when its visual state is “up_maximized” (when it is maximized, the drop shadow cannot be seen so applying the effect will be pointless).
Always Cast Drop Shadow
To make a uiWindow instance always cast a drop shadow, you can set its background property as below:
var win:uiWindow = new uiWindow(); win.background = {shadow:0x000000};
Never Cast Drop Shadow
To make a uiWindow instance never cast a drop shadow, you can set its background property to null:
var win:uiWindow = new uiWindow(); win.background = null;
Glow Effect
As of v1.3.0+, you can also get the uiWindow instance (any uiComponent, actually) to cast a glow effect:
var win:uiWindow = new uiWindow(); win.background = {glow_up:0x000000, glow_up_maximized:-1};
Drop Shadow + Glow
In the “vista” theme, the uiWindow instances use drop shadow + glow effects:
See: “vista” themed uiWindow demo
Specifying Default uiWindow Background Property
If you wish to override the default background property value, ie set the default value for all uiWindow instances, you can do so by defining it in the theme folder’s “rules.xml”:
<Window edge="5,5,5" slices="up,out,up_maximized,out_maximized" prefs="padding|5|background|shadow_up,0,shadow_up_maximized,-1,glow,0,glowDepth,12,glow_up_maximized,-1" />
Aspire UI Components
Aspire UI is a library of Actionscript 3.0 (AS3) classes for building flexible and lightweight UI elements in Adobe Flash applications. Key features include easy skinning using PNG image files, automatic tab focus ordering, CSS text styles, and layout management. This is a pure AS3 library with no dependency on the Flex framework.
You may experiment with the various features by downloading the trial version.
