no matter, I lucked onto the correct answer. it wasn't what I thought, labelFunction to the rescue instead:
private function treeLabel( item:Object ) : String
{
var node:XML = XML(item);
if( node.localName() == "question")
return String([EMAIL PROTECTED]).substr(0,20);
else
return [EMAIL PROTECTED];
}
just have to think of a more generic term to
if( node.localName() == "question")
it's more like
if(!node.hasChildren())
