Open New or Activate Existing Flex Window in Adobe AIR Application by Searching WindowedSystemManager for nativeApplication.openedWindows

You have an Adobe AIR native application and you want to activate a Window for a particular mxml class if it exists or open a new one if it does not, right?

For example: If you have a configuration dialog opened by a menuitem or a button, you don’t want to open another instance of that dialog if it’s still open (and, obviously, it’s not modal).

In an AIR application, NativeApplication.nativeApplication.openedWindows contains a list of the NativeWindow instances opened by the application.

NativeWindow instances contain the Window class on their respective stage stacks.

This function seems to work well for me:

function windowOpenOrActivateByClass( myClass:Class ): Object
{
 for each( var win:NativeWindow in NativeApplication.nativeApplication.openedWindows )
 {
  for ( var i:int = 0; i < win.stage.numChildren; i++ )
  {
   var mgr:WindowedSystemManager = win.stage.getChildAt(i) as WindowedSystemManager;

   if ( mgr == null )
    continue;

   for ( var j:int = 0; j < mgr.numChildren; j++ )
   {
    var obj:Object = mgr.getChildAt(j);
    if ( obj is myClass )
    {
     obj.activate();
     return obj;
    }
   }
  }
 }
   
 obj = new myClass();
 obj.open();
 return obj;   
}