Package	mx.controls
Class	public class FileSystemDataGrid
Inheritance	FileSystemDataGrid DataGrid DataGridBase ListBase ScrollControlBase UIComponent FlexSprite Sprite DisplayObjectContainer InteractiveObject DisplayObject EventDispatcher Object

The information displayed for each item consists of its name (with optional generic icon), type, size, creation date, and modification date. To do this, FileSystemDataGrid automatically creates five columns (DataGridColumn instances) -- nameColumn, typeColumn, sizeColumn, creationDateColumn, and modificationDateColumn -- and sets the columns property to an array of these five instances. Each column instance is automatically configured to have an appropriate labelFunction, sortCompareFunction, etc. If you don't want all five columns, or if you want to change the order, reset the columns property. If you want to customize a column, such as by changing its labelFunction, simply reassign that property on the appropriate column object.

To change the displayed data, rather than using the dataProvider property, you set the directory property. The control then automatically populates the dataProvider property by enumerating the contents of that directory. You should not set the dataProvider yourself.

You set the directory property to a File instance, as the following example shows:

<mx:FileSystemDataGrid directory="{File.desktopDirectory}"/>

You can set the enumerationMode property to specify whether to show files, subdirectories, or both. There are three ways to show both: directories first, files first, or intermixed.

You can set the extensions property to filter the displayed items so that only files with the specified extensions appear. The showHidden property determines whether the control displays files and subdirectories that the operating system normally hides. You can specify an additional filterFunction to perform custom filtering, and a nameCompareFunction to perform custom sorting.

Because AIR does not support file system notifications, this control does not automatically refresh if a file or subdirectory is created, deleted, moved, or renamed; in other words, it can display an out-of-date view of the file system. However, you can call refresh() to re-enumerate the current directory. You could, for example, choose to do this when you have performed a file operation that you know causes the control's view to become out-of-date, or when the user deactivates and reactivates your application.

You can use the showIcons property to show or hide icons, and the showExtensions property to show or hide file extensions.

The control provides two methods, findItem() and findIndex(), which you can use to search the displayed files and subdirectories to find the one with a specified nativePath.

Two properties, selectedPath and selectedPaths, work similarly to selectedItem and selectedItems or selectedIndex and selectedIndices, but let you specify the selection via nativePath strings. These are very useful if you need to display a directory with particular items preselected, since in this case you don't yet have the File items that the control will create when it enumerates the directory, and you don't know what their indices will be.

The control allows the user to navigate to other directories using the mouse or keyboard. The user can try to change the directory by double-clicking a subdirectory, by pressing Enter or Ctrl-Down when a subdirectory is selected, by pressing Ctrl-Up when the control isn't displaying the COMPUTER directory, by pressing Ctrl-Left when there is a "previous" directory to navigate back to, or by pressing Ctrl-Right when there is a "next" directory to navigate forward to. If the user attempts to change the directory being displayed, the control dispatches a cancelable directoryChanging event. If you don't cancel this event by calling event.preventDefault(), the control displays the contents of the new directory and the directory property changes. Whenever the directory property changes, for any reason, the controls dispatches a directoryChange event to let you know.

In order to support "Up" and "Down" controls, the FileSystemList has canNavigateUp and canNavigateDown properties and navigateUp() and navigateDown() methods. There is also a navigateTo() for navigating to an arbitrary directory.

The control keeps track of the directories to which the user has navigated, in order to make it easy for you to support "Back" and "Forward" controls. For more information, see the backHistory, forwardHistory, canNavigateBack, and canNavigateForward properties, and the navigateBack() and navigateForward() methods.

Note: The icons displayed for each item are generic file and directory icons which you can set using the fileIcon and directoryIcon styles. Flex's list-based controls currently support displaying only embedded icons, not icons read at runtime. Therefore the actual file system icons displayed in the operating system are not displayed in a FileSystemDataGrid, even though they are accessible in AIR via the icon property of a File.

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  <mx:FileSystemDataGrid
    Properties
    dateFormatString=""
    directory="null"
    enumerationMode="directoriesFirst"
    extensions="null"
    filterFunction="null"
    nameCompareFunction="null"
    selectedPath="null"
    selectedPaths="null"
    showExtensions="true"
    showHidden="false"
    showIcons="true"
 
    Styles
    directoryIcon="TreeNodeIcon"
    fileIcon="TreeNodeIcon"
 
    Events
    directoryChange="No default"
    directoryChanging="No default"
    fileChoose="No default"
  />
  

See also