Column Chart with Item Renderer – updated

Okay, it didn’t take me long to get back and do some more fiddling with the Column Chart Item Renderer. I went ahead and changed the static ArrayCollection to a dynamic one, because I was trying to figure out something with Themes and needed a button and the button should do something. The ArrayCollection is fairly simple for this chart, so all I did was create a couple of random values from 0 to 100 and made the “date” value the counter time 10. I set it up so that you can press a button and create new data, which is helpful to see the changes to the columns.

// Create some random data for Yesterday and blank data for today
private function dataCreation():void {
	currentArray.removeAll();

	for(var h:int = 0; h < 4; h++) {
		// Generate Random Data
		var randomClose:Number = Math.floor(Math.random() * 100);
		var randomOpen:Number = Math.floor(Math.random() * 100);
		// create a temporary object and add the three values
		var tmpObject:Object = new Object();
		tmpObject.date = (h + 1) * 10;
		tmpObject.close = randomClose;
		tmpObject.open = randomOpen;

		// insert new tmpObject
		currentArray.addItem(tmpObject);
	}

	// Refresh the data
	currentArray.refresh();
}

After that was fixed, I went ahead to modify the ItemRenderer again, but this time to use a GradientFill and a BitMapFill. I had to reduce what was defined for the rectangle, to just a Graphic item as a holder.

s:Graphic id="graphicHolder" />

And then I declared three different rectangles, one for each type of fill. Again, this was to simplify things and also to make sure I was doing the right thing for each fill. As you can see in the Gradient Fill, I had to set the three GradientEntry items to create the look I need. You could do this all dynamically, but I don’t think most people will try different Gradients for each column. Which is why my Gradient fill only changes the Start, Mid and End color of the Gradient.

<fx:Declarations>
	<s:Rect id="imageRect">
		<s:stroke>
			<s:SolidColorStroke id="rectImageStroke" />
		</s:stroke>
		<s:fill>
			<s:BitmapFill id="imageRectFill" fillMode="repeat" scaleX=".70" scaleY=".70" smooth="true" />
		</s:fill>
	</s:Rect>

	<s:Rect id="gradientRect">
		<s:stroke>
			<s:SolidColorStroke id="rectLinGradStroke" />
		</s:stroke>
		<s:fill>
			<s:LinearGradient id="rectLinGrad">
				<s:entries>
					<s:GradientEntry id="linGradColorStart" ratio="0" alpha=".5" />
					<s:GradientEntry id="linGradColorMid" ratio=".25" alpha=".5" />
					<s:GradientEntry id="linGradColorEnd" ratio=".66" alpha=".5" />
				</s:entries>
			</s:LinearGradient>
		</s:fill>
	</s:Rect>

	<s:Rect id="solidRect">
		<s:stroke>
			<s:SolidColorStroke id="rectSolidStroke" />
		</s:stroke>
		<s:fill>
			<s:SolidColor id="rectSolidColor" />
		</s:fill>
	</s:Rect>	
</fx:Declarations>

From here, it was just setting the color for the Gradients and the appropriate image for the BitMap Fills. Except that it took me a while to figure out the correct syntax for the Image. I couldn’t declare it. I couldn’t just Embed it as the source. I had to Embed it as a Bindable Class and then set the BitmapAsset to that Class and finally make it the source for the BitMapFill.

// Embed the Red Apple Image
[Embed(source="../assets/images/red-apple.png")]
[Bindable]
public var imgRedApple:Class;

// Red Image Fill
var imgRedAppleObj:BitmapAsset = new imgRedApple() as BitmapAsset;
imageRectFill.source = imgRedAppleObj;

I simplified the code so that different columns do only two fills. I had columns doing all three fills, but decided that was too much code and could get really confusing. With the example below;

• If the 1st column has more than 45, then the Red Apple Image Fill is used, else the Red Gradient Fill
• If the 2nd column has more than 45, then the Blue Gradient Fill is used, else the Blue Solid Fill
• If the 3rd column has more than 45, then the Green Apple Image Fill is used, else the Green Solid Fill
• If the 4th column has more than 45, then the Purple Solid Fill is used, else the Purple Gradient Fill

I created a second file for this example, so that the first example and this example could be viewed separately.
View Source