After having understood in details the Flex Component Life Cycle, let’s look at ways to add styles to Flex custom components.

You can find a lot of information about styling a component in Adobe documentation, but the most interesting parts are somewhat hidden at the bottom of different pages of multiple sections.

So, here’s my synthesis describing the two “best ways” of Styling a Flex Custom Component efficiently.

There are a lot of Flex Explorer applications available on line. These explorers can really help when you want to refresh your knowledge on the Flex capabilities or when you plan to fine tune specific styles or effects.

Whether you’re trying to design a good looking button or data grid, configuring a fancy glow effect, implementing a complex regular expression, configuring a BlazeDS channel or just searching for inspiration; there is probably a Flex Explorer for you.

Here is my own list of explorers, that I also gathered in my Flex Tool Box page for quick and easy reference.