Updating a dynamically created ImageView with Appcelerator - appcelerator

Question

I'm trying to do something I think is simple, but just having a few issues on iOS using Titanium 5.2.2 SDK.
So, I have an app that pulls down a list of Employees from a JSON file hosted outside the app, I cache all that data in an onboard DB and create a masked Image for each employee inside my loop.
employeeImage[i] = Titanium.UI.createMaskedImage({
mask : employee_image, // background image
tint: 'black',
mode : Titanium.UI.iOS.BLEND_MODE_COLOR,
width: 210,
height: 210,
touchEnabled: false,
custom_employee_id: employee_id
});
I need to be able to refer to that Image and update the tint from 'black' to something 'else' elsewhere in my app, so I'm not having to do constant look ups and refreshing every single image.
I want to do something like this:
// get the employee status
var db = Ti.Database.open('Enter');
var getEmp = db.execute('SELECT employee_id, employee_status FROM Employee');
while (getEmp.isValidRow())
{
var empID = getEmp.fieldByName('employee_id');
var empStatus = getEmp.fieldByName('employee_status');
Ti.API.info(empID + ' ' + empStatus);
// update the images correctly
if (empStatus == 0) {
// update the image mask to black if they are now out of the building
Ti.API.info('Status is zero');
//employeeImage[i].tint = 'black';
} else {
// update the image mask to transparent if they are now in the building
Ti.API.info('Status is ONE');
//employeeImage[i].tint = 'transparent';
}
getEmp.next();
}
getEmp.close();
db.close();
The problem is, I don't know if I can set those changes to the image view if it has a dynamic name.
If it were just called employeeImage1 this would be easy. However, if I try call employeeImage1 instead of employeeImage[i] I get this error.
"Can't find variable: employeeImage1";
How do I get around this?
Any ideas?

Answer 1

There is no doubt that you can store your objects as array elements. I've reduced your sample to the following testcase:
(function(){
var count=10;
var i=0;
var employeeImage=[];
for (i=0;i<10;i++){
employeeImage[i]=Ti.UI.createButton({
title : "Employee " + i
});
}
for (var i=0;i<10;i++){
console.log(employeeImage[i].title);
}
})()
The output for this is what you'd expect:
[INFO] Employee 0
[INFO] Employee 1
[INFO] Employee 2
[INFO] Employee 3
[INFO] Employee 4
[INFO] Employee 5
[INFO] Employee 6
[INFO] Employee 7
[INFO] Employee 8
[INFO] Employee 9
Now, as array elements, you should call it as employeeImage[n] and not as employeeImageN, because employeeImageN doesn't exists, what exists is a reference to your object stored as array elements.
Does this make sense.
R