HOWTO: Setting a custom sortItemRenderer to the AdvancedDataGrid

“We should all do what in the long run gives us joy, even if it means sorting the laundry “

BackGround:

sortItemRenderer is one of those tiny goodies that comes with the AdvancedDataGrid package; albeit hard to miss. It is a nifty venomous utility that can be customizable according to needs.

The component by default uses the AdvancedDataGridSortItemRenderer which renders the sort feature of the header.

Sweet. But now I am in my familiar break-the-code-and-do-some-shit-on-my-own mood when I use my own headerRenderer , I lose the sort display completely !

The solution here will to write either a custom sortItemRenderer or handle the default sortItemRenderer within the headerRenderer code . Here I explain how to build a custom sortItemRenderer that can be used with any customized headerRenderer.

Code explained :

The core feature to understand here is the function getIconInfo() that returns a SortInfo object . The SortInfo object contains information which is used by the sortItemRenderer to dipslay the icon and the sequence value of the sort. ( P.S. : The order of sorting can easily be specified by accessing sequenceNumber as returned by this SortInfo object.

This function makes a call to the getFieldSortInfo method of AdvancedDataGrid to retrieve the sort information.

This example code uses two icons to display ascending/descending sort as in :

var sortIcon:Class = arrowDown ? _descendingIcon : _ascendingIcon;

A simple function flips the icon based on the SortInfo value .

The output of the program will look like this :

Goodies :

Here is the link to an application that uses this custom built sortRenderer

You can find the source here