Factories came late to the party and we couldn't retrofit everything. One of the things we wish we could do-over.
________________________________ From: flexcoders@yahoogroups.com [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of thirtyfivemph Sent: Wednesday, July 09, 2008 3:06 PM To: flexcoders@yahoogroups.com Subject: [flexcoders] Why are "icons" typed as Classes and not just class factories? One of the beauties of Flash's display list API is the ability to treat almost all visual elements as the universal DisplayObject and not be concerned with whether they're a simple shape or whether they're a complex, multi-state movie clip. But, when it comes to Flex framework widgets, like buttons, trees, etc., when an icon is referenced Flex expects a Class. Now, I understand that this is done because (a) it gives you a factory and (b) it makes CSS handling easier. But those don't seem like good trade-offs considering the incredible limitation it introduces (no dynamic instances for icons, for example) and the fact that Flex already has a built-in mechanism for Factory interfaces. So, what's the reasoning? What gives? Troy.
