Question

Possible Duplicate:
What are the downsides to using Spark over Halo in Flex?

I have a library written in Flex 3 (and hence, with Halo theme), so it’s getting a lot of conflicts in my application (which is Flex 4 and Spark theme).

I’ve changed to Halo theme in my application and now the library works OK (not perfect but at least it works, and I can fix some things).

The question is, am I losing something switching from Spark to Halo?
I mean, what is the problem with using the Halo theme? The Spark components seems to work anyway.

Is the Halo theme slower? Heavier? Are there Spark components that won’t work with Halo?

Can you make a list of pros and cons of using a Halo theme over using Spark theme? (both in Flex 4 projects)

Thanks!

EDIT
Just to be clear, I’m not asking for MX and Spark components, I’m asking for Halo vs Spark theme, in an application which uses both MX and Spark components.

Answer 1

From this thread on Adobe’s forum which sums things up pretty well:

The Spark theme is the default theme for Flex 4. Halo theme was the default theme for Flex 3. Each of these themes will support different styles. So, it is up to you which theme you want to use depending on the look and feel that you are going for in your application. There is no equivalent for the Halo theme’s borderThickness in the Spark theme. In general, the Halo theme has a lot more ‘out-of-the-box’ styles for components and containers. However, using custom skins is much easier if your application uses the Spark theme.

If you look at the ASDocs for each of the component classes, the styles should have a “theme” listed where it tells you whether that style is supported on Halo, Spark or both. The other theme that comes with the Flex 4 SDK is the Wireframe theme which doesn’t support any styles.

Lastly, if you want to use the Spark theme, you can consider changing your Canvas component to a Spark BorderContainer which contains the borderWeight style that will do what you want.