HTML Links in Flex

I’ve never found the need to have HTML links in Flex behave (and look) like their true HTML counterparts, but a student recently asked how she could get HTML links defined in a Text control to behave like regular HTML links.  After digging around, I found a lot of references to this problem but the solution turned up at Flex Freaks:

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<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<mx:Application xmlns:mx="http://www.adobe.com/2006/mxml" layout="absolute">
<mx:Script>
<![CDATA[
 
import mx.core.mx_internal;
 
public function textHandler(e:Event):void
{
    var styleSheet:StyleSheet = new StyleSheet();
    styleSheet.setStyle("a:link", { textDecoration: "underline", color: "#30F" });
    e.currentTarget.mx_internal::styleSheet = styleSheet;
}
 
]]>
</mx:Script> 
 
 
<mx:Text initialize="this.textHandler(event)">
    <mx:htmlText>
    <![CDATA[
        You may <a href="">click</a> here.
    ]]>
    </mx:htmlText>
</mx:Text>
 
</mx:Application>

Apparently, this should not be used with any degree of reliability so far as future-proofing is concerned since the mx.core.mx_internal class may flux between versions of the Flex SDK.

Listed in the rumored Flex 4 improvements are support for CSS descendant selectors, ID selectors, and space-delimited style names. Something like this should really be handled via CSS so here’s hoping that this will soon be a much simpler process.

Not sure if I’ll ever need this in the future, but in the case that I do- I know it’s here for easy access.