Single ItemRenderer for Multiple Columns in a DataGrid

Many a times we have similar columns in a datagrid and are required to be rendered in a similar manner with only little variations like formatting of the column. It is redundant in such a case to write a separate ItemRenderer per column. A better approach would be to write single ItemRenderer and pass properties to the ItemRenderer to identify a particular column.


This can be achieved by settings the ItemRenderer to column using Actionscript.
The catch is to pass properties to ItemRenderer using ClassFactory.properties method.

http://livedocs.adobe.com/flex/2/langref/mx/core/ClassFactory.html

Here's the sample code:

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var colRendererFactory:ClassFactory = new ClassFactory(columnRendererClass);
colRendererFactory.properties = {columnName:"mycol1"};
column1.itemRenderer = colRendererFactory

var colRendererFactory2:ClassFactory = new ClassFactory(columnRendererClass);
colRendererFactory2.properties = {columnName:"mycol2"};
column2.itemRenderer = colRendererFactory2;

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This way you can have the same itemrenderer for multiple columns and can do different styling for each column based on the properties passed.