Flex MenuItem Actions

So, gonna write this here because I will forget how to do it. Essentially, this approach eliminates the need to conditionally branch on menu item properties. Before we would do something like:

private function menuHandler(event:MouseEvent):void {
    if (event.item.@label == 'Save') {
        f = File.destopDirectory;
        f.browseForSave('Save');
        f.addEventListener(Event.SELECT, this.selectSaveFolderHandler);
    } else if (event.item.@label == 'Open') {
        // etc
    }
}

As you can see, this is an awfully coupled solution. Whenever we want to change the name of a menu item, we also need to change the logic in the handler. This can be somewhat alleviated by using an @id property instead of the display text, but its still coupled. The better solution is to allow the menu item itself designate what action it should trigger when clicked. This is the method that Buttons use, but for menu items it's a little different because the menu is simply XML data. What we need then is a way to store a method name in the menu item XML definition, have that parameter read by the menu handler method, and the appropriate method called. For simplicity we limit the specified method to whichever class contains the actual menu, and that the method has no required arguments. The magic here is the use of the flash.utils.getDefinitionByName() function to return a Function definition rather than a Class, and using the Function.call() method to actually call the returned Function. So our revised menu item XML would look something like:

<!-- menu items -->
<mx:XMLList>
    <menuitem label="Save" action="saveMenuHandler"/>
    <menuitem label="Open" action="openMenuHandler"/>
</mx:XMLList>

And our handler would look like:

// AS handler
private function menuHandler(event:MouseEvent):void {
    var method:String = String(event.item.@action);
    try {
        var methodRef:Function = Function(flash.utils.getDefinitionByName(method));
        methodRef.call(this);
    } catch (e:ReferenceError) {
        trace(e.message);
    }
}

I haven't tested this idea so no idea if it works or not, so YMMV. But it should work, and if I ever get around to refactoring some old code I will certainly be including this.

Benjamin Snider