R – Alternative to Flex Framework

You might want to look into Modules. Otherwise the code is in one SWF. You can also move the Flex framework code out of yur SWF. And you can always dynamically load your resources such as images.

Got a solution for your problem (because I had to work out a custom component behaving similar to the googles search input box). Seems the normal input processing gets into wrong ways by filtering the dataprovider. However I didnt examined the sources of the unexpected behaviour as deeply as needed to provide a solide explanation of the causing problem (the idea of a possible solution came too fast ;.)). Here it is:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<s:ComboBox xmlns:fx="http://ns.adobe.com/mxml/2009" 
        xmlns:s="library://ns.adobe.com/flex/spark" 
        xmlns:mx="library://ns.adobe.com/flex/mx"
        skinClass="CGoogleComboSkin">
<fx:Script>
    <![CDATA[
        import mx.collections.ArrayCollection;
        import mx.collections.IList;

        import spark.events.TextOperationEvent;

        private var unfilteredDataProvider : IList;
        override public function set dataProvider(value:IList):void {
            super.dataProvider = value;

            unfilteredDataProvider = value;
        }

        override protected function textInput_changeHandler(
                event:TextOperationEvent):void {
            super.textInput_changeHandler(event);

            if (unfilteredDataProvider is ArrayCollection) {
                ArrayCollection(unfilteredDataProvider).filterFunction = filterMatches;
                ArrayCollection(unfilteredDataProvider).refresh();

                super.dataProvider = new ArrayCollection(unfilteredDataProvider.toArray()); 
            }
        }

        protected function filterMatches(item:Object):Boolean {
            if (item is String) {
                if(String(item).toLowerCase().indexOf(
                    textInput.text.slice(0,
                        textInput.selectionAnchorPosition).toLowerCase())>-1)
                    return true;
            }
            else if (labelField && labelField!= "") {
                if(item.hasOwnProperty(labelField) && 
                        String(item[labelField]).toLowerCase().indexOf(
                        textInput.text.slice(0,
                        textInput.selectionAnchorPosition).toLowerCase())>-1)
                    return true;
            }

            return false;
        }
    ]]>
</fx:Script>
<fx:Declarations>
</fx:Declarations>

The idea behind this solution was to construct the custom Combobox by inheritance and overriding the setter of the dataprovider in a way to have the unfiltered dataprovider as unchanged source by any textoperation but let the flex combobox deal in its usual way with a collection where no filter is attached to (which is by any input allready the result of the filtering of the source collection). It was just a try but worked and was as fast applicable as I appreciated it ;.)

happy coding