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I used Flex 2/3 for a couple of years and have just come back to it, upgrading to Flex 4. I'm seeing some references to Halo and Spark themes but I never got into themes in my previous work so I'm a bit confused what's going on. Am I correct that Halo was the default theme, or is this all new?

Also, I took a simple Flex 3 MXML and tried to make it work in Flex4:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<mx:Application
    xmlns:fx="http://ns.adobe.com/mxml/2009"
    xmlns:mx="library://ns.adobe.com/flex/mx"
    layout="absolute" borderStyle="none" borderColor="#000000" cornerRadius="0" 
    backgroundGradientAlphas="[1.0, 1.0]" backgroundGradientColors="[#000000, #FF0000]"
    width="800" height="600"
    frameRate="20">
</mx:Application>

But I get errors, like "Error: The style 'backgroundGradientColors' is only supported by type 'mx.core.Application' with the theme(s) 'halo'."

I tried a few things but each one introduced its own errors.

zero323
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Mr. Boy
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1 Answers1

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Flex 4 introduced a new component architecture, called "Spark". "Halo" refers to the Flex 3 component architecture.

Michael Brewer-Davis
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  • So Spark is not an alternate theme, but a new approach - that suggests I'd be better using Spark in my Flex 4 application if it's not a big amount of work, right? – Mr. Boy Oct 12 '10 at 18:09
  • That's right. You should focus on the spark UI components for new projects. – Michael Brewer-Davis Oct 12 '10 at 23:19
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    Disagree. You should choose based on the project requirements. Sometimes Spark makes things (which were simple in Halo) needlessly more complicated. Spark is better if you're doing heavy UI skinning & customization. If you don't do custom skin work, but want something nicer looking than Spark's boring default look, Halo is a nice alternative. Our users tend to like Halo UIs better than Spark UIs, which look like a step back to some (out of the box). – Mifune Aug 20 '12 at 21:30