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Using FlexEvent.IDLE to Determine Inactivity
A FlexEvent.IDLE event will dispatch every 100 milliseconds when there has been no keyboard or mouse activity for 1 second. So, if you want to have some other method fire off after the user is inactive for 5 minutes (for example), you would set it up as detailed below.
Be sure to import the following classes. IDLE needs to be bound to a SystemManager instance and we will need to reference the mx_internal namespace later on:
1 2 3 | import mx.managers.SystemManager; import mx.events.FlexEvent; import mx.core.mx_internal; |
You’ll need to tell Flex that you want to use mx_internal as a namespace to access those properties within the SystemManager class. SytemManager has an “idleCounter” property which is super useful to access- but it is scoped to mx_internal and is not normally accessible. Trying to access it without these steps will throw an error:
1 | use namespace mx_internal; |
SystemManager is automatically instantiated as a part of every Flex app, so we do not need to do this manually. We will, however, need to add an event listener for FlexEvent.IDLE:
1 | this.systemManager.addEventListener(FlexEvent.IDLE, userIdle); |
Construct the callback method. Five minutes is equal to 300000 milliseconds… divided by 100 ticks and the number we need to check against is 3000. Of course, you’ll probably want something a little shorter in duration for testing:
1 2 3 4 5 | private function userIdle(e:FlexEvent):void { if(e.currentTarget.mx_internal::idleCounter == 3000){ //do something! } } |
Note that we prefix the idleClounter property with the mx_internal namespace.
That’s it! Now we have a sweet little activity monitor in our app. When activity is detected, idleCounter will automatically reset as well.
5 Comments to “Using FlexEvent.IDLE to Determine Inactivity”
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About this Website
This is the website of Joseph Labrecque: Senior Multimedia Application Developer for the University of Denver and Owner of Fractured Vision Media, LLC. Joseph is an Adobe Higher Education Leader.
Thanks for your post, currently I will be implementing the same solution to track user’s inactivity in Flex app based on FlexEvent.IDLE event
And I find mx_internal::idleCounter to be useful too!
Thanks for the post, it really helps. There is some methods getting current time at every FlexEvent.IDLE, but idleCounter is better.
Hi,
This is very useful, but has a problem. It works perfect until you show a
TittleWindow, if you move the mouse over the window, the counter don’t restarts, I
mean, the FlexEvent.IDLE event is not fired when you have opened a TitleWindow.
Really very great tip!
This is the best solution instead add a listener in the Application for MouseEvent.MOVE combinated with getTime() values.
Congrats and thanks!
Thanks a lot for this. I was using a similar solution but recently discovered an intermittent flaw with it. Using the internal idleCounter seems to have resolved my issue.