Flex 4:The default property contents must be contiguous

In Flash Builder 4, when tried to create a MXML component and instantiate it in the main MXML application, I found that the "Outline" explorer is not displaying the correct tree view anymore, instead it displayed excalmatory marks for each of the components' icon:

And when I switched to the design view in the MXML editor, it failed to render the preview and showed an error message "The default property contents must be contiguous":

However, when I compiled and run the application, everything looked OK. I think this was just an error for the Flash Builder 4 failing to parse and render the outline and preview. The code which was generating such error looks like this:

Code - MXML Plain Text

 

1. <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>  
2. <s:Application xmlns:fx="http://ns.adobe.com/mxml/2009"   
3.                xmlns:s="library://ns.adobe.com/flex/spark"   
4.                xmlns:mx="library://ns.adobe.com/flex/mx"   
5.                xmlns:components="components.*">  
6.     <fx:Declarations>  
7.         <!-- Place non-visual elements (e.g., services, value objects) here -->  
8.     </fx:Declarations>  
9.       
10.     <s:layout>  
11.         <s:VerticalLayout horizontalAlign="center" paddingTop="20"/>  
12.     </s:layout>  
13.       
14.     <!-- shorthand MXML bindings -->  
15.     <s:TextInput id="sourceText" text="some value"/>  
16.     <s:Label text="{sourceText.text}"/>  
17.           
18.     <!-- two-way bindings -->  
19.     <s:TextInput id="input1" text="@{input2.text}"/>  
20.     <s:TextInput id="input2"/>  
21.       
22.       
23.     <!-- Using <fx:Binding> -->  
24.     <s:TextInput id="sourceText2" text="some value 2"/>  
25.     <s:Label id="destinationText"/>  
26.     <fx:Binding source="sourceText2.text" destination="destinationText.text"/>  
27.       
28.     <!-- Instantiate a MXML component -->  
29.     <components:MyComponent id="comp1"/>  
30. </s:Application>  

As the error message said, the visual componets (default property contents) must  be contiguous. So I tried to move the "fx:Binding" tag to just behind the "fx:Declaration" tag, then the error went away.

Code - XML/HTML Plain Text

 

1. <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>  
2. <s:Application xmlns:fx="http://ns.adobe.com/mxml/2009"   
3.                xmlns:s="library://ns.adobe.com/flex/spark"   
4.                xmlns:mx="library://ns.adobe.com/flex/mx"   
5.                xmlns:components="components.*">  
6.     <fx:Declarations>  
7.         <!-- Place non-visual elements (e.g., services, value objects) here -->  
8.     </fx:Declarations>  
9.     <fx:Binding source="sourceText2.text" destination="destinationText.text"/>  
10.       
11.     <s:layout>  
12.         <s:VerticalLayout horizontalAlign="center" paddingTop="20"/>  
13.     </s:layout>  
14.       
15.     <!-- shorthand MXML bindings -->  
16.     <s:TextInput id="sourceText" text="some value"/>  
17.     <s:Label text="{sourceText.text}"/>  
18.           
19.     <!-- two-way bindings -->  
20.     <s:TextInput id="input1" text="@{input2.text}"/>  
21.     <s:TextInput id="input2"/>  
22.           
23.     <!-- Using <fx:Binding> -->  
24.     <s:TextInput id="sourceText2" text="some value 2"/>  
25.     <s:Label id="destinationText"/>  
26.       
27.     <!-- Instantiate a MXML component -->  
28.     <components:MyComponent id="comp1"/>  
29. </s:Application>  

Note that the "s:layout" from the spark library is also a non-visual component, so it can't be placed between any of the visual components neither, otherwise the same error would occur.

 

from:http://www.inluck.net/Blog/Flash-Builder-4-error-The-default-property-contents-must-be-contiguous