Flex

Adobe Flex, Flash and Loosely Coupled On Demand

Sat, 20 Sep 2008 03:00:00 EDT

Adobe Flex and Flash are the ideal technology for Rich Internet Applications because you can build those applications with reusable components that are Loosely Coupled. In his session, learn how you can create an On-Demand Authoring Environment for creating Rich Internet Applications bound to any database or web service using Flex 2 and Flash CS4.

How To Build On-Demand Business Apps Using Force.com & Adobe Flex

Sat, 20 Sep 2008 03:00:00 EDT

Enterprises are enthusiastically embracing the shift from traditional client/server computing to SaaS. Inspired by customers who have embraced the Web, developers are using RIA tools to create innovative new on-demand business applications. One important factor in the shift from traditional computing to SaaS has been ease of use through vendors' careful attention to the user experience utilizing RIA technologies. This jointly presented session will present how RIA technologies such as AJAX and Flex - in combination with the Force.com platform - provide all the tools necessary for developers to build an enterprise-class application - sometimes within hours!

How To Build On-Demand Business Apps Using Force.com & Flex

Sun, 14 Sep 2008 15:45:00 EDT

Enterprises are enthusiastically embracing the shift from traditional client/server computing to SaaS. Inspired by customers who have embraced the web, developers are using RIA tools to create innovative new on-demand business applications. One important factor in the shift from traditional computing to SaaS has been ease of use through vendors' careful attention to the user experience utilizing RIA technologies. This jointly presented session will present how RIA technologies such as AJAX and Flex - in combination with the Force.com platform - provide all the tools necessary for developers to build an enterprise-class application - sometimes within hours!

AJAX World RIA Conference: FLEX+ AIR + Mobile

Mon, 11 Aug 2008 15:30:00 EDT

In this session Thomas will share his experience in migrating from AJAX to Flex, the advantages/disadvantages that Flex has as the primary client for a consumer web-based SaaS product, and his vision of how Flex + AIR via any desktop + Mobile (in one or more technical forms) takes us a step towards the vision that Mark Weiser presented in his original works on ubiquitous computing.

4D Releases 4D Web 2.0 Pack v11 Release 2 (11.2)

Fri, 25 Jul 2008 16:15:00 EDT

4D announced the release of 4D Web 2.0 Pack v11 Release 2. The new version, a combination of two products - 4D AJAX Framework and 4D for Flex - brings a powerful set of tools, plug-ins, and components that allow 4D developers to harness the power of Web 2.0 technologies, and deliver live web and rich internet applications to browsers, desktops, and portable devices such as the iPhone.

A Guide to Rich Internet Application (RIA) Security

Fri, 25 Jul 2008 15:30:00 EDT

Read about Forrester's findings on RIA security included in a Forrester Research paper valued at $775 titled 'Securing Rich Internet Applications' by Jeffrey Hammond, plus find out about Curl's Security Architecture in a new Curl white paper titled 'Developing Secure Rich Internet Applications for the Enterprise' by David Kranz, CTO.

Keys to Success When Load Testing Today's Flex Applications

Sat, 19 Jul 2008 18:30:00 EDT

In today's complex web application world, developers need to test applications that go beyond simple HTTP-based pages. They need to test Rich Internet Applications that incorporate complex technologies like Adobe's Flex. Adobe Flex applications may be different from applications you worked with previously. With applications that deliver HTML as the user interface, the server does all of the processing. Users simply page back and forth to the server.

DreamFace Interactive Delivers Mashup Kit: DreamFace-Fx for Adobe Flex

Mon, 30 Jun 2008 13:00:00 EDT

Following the private Beta release last month, DreamFace Interactive announced the general availability of the DreamFace-Fx Mashup Kit for Adobe Flex. As promised, DreamFace-Fx is the first Mashup Kit to reach developers in a comprehensive roadmap which will extend the DreamFace Open Source Web 2.0 Framework to include complementary technologies. Olivier Poupeney, DreamFace Interactive CEO explains the choice of Adobe Flex for the first Mashup Kit, 'There is a need today for RIA technologies in SOA applications, and Flex is getting attraction from the Java community thanks to its smooth integration with J2EE, however, using Flex usually means abandoning AJAX with the risk of being linked to a single technology. With DreamFace-Fx, developers can easily integrate Flex and AJAX, leveraging the combined technologies and resulting in functionality greater than the sum of its parts.'

AJAX and Enterprise RIA Tools - JSF, Flex, and JavaFX

Fri, 20 Jun 2008 12:45:00 EDT

2008 is going to be an important year for Rich Internet Applications. Most organizations are delivering or planning to deliver Rich Internet Applications; however, at the same time, most IT managers are facing a dilemma: which Rich Internet Application technology and platform to use? The number of different frameworks and libraries is too vast to even consider evaluating a fraction of them.

AJAX World - Cooking CRUD with Flex and BlazeDS

Mon, 19 May 2008 15:00:00 EDT

In today's cooking class you'll add to your cookbook a delicious recipe. It's quick and won't cost you a dime. I'm sure you've been in one of these situations when you have unexpected guests arriving in 20 minutes and need to make a good impression. Let's create an application that will auto-generate a Flex-Tomcat-BlazeDS-DB2 application.

Flex 4: My Wish List

Wed, 07 May 2008 07:00:00 EDT

Flex 2 was released in the Summer of 2006 and it was a mini-revolution in the RIA space. Almost nobody knew about Flex 1.5, but now almost everyone has at least heard about this software. Flex 3 was released in early 2008. It has a number of useful new features, but it was not a major release. In my opinion, a more modest 2.5 would suffice. We are expecting more now. Flex 4 will come out to the world next year and while the Flex team has announced a number of very interesting syntax improvements, I'd love to see more fundamental improvements in this great RIA tool.

Responding to the "Adobe Flex Shortcomings" Java Blog

Thu, 10 Apr 2008 09:15:00 EDT

Vectors supporting types are the part of next release - and are billed more of performance/coding help then language enhancement. Most of the Java 5 constructs are not really applicable to ActionScript 3 - for fair comparison you need to use Java 7/8 with dynamic scripting language support - and then the way you speak that language changes. Compare how enum support evolved in Java over the years - starting with patterns - and you would think of language as of evolving environment. I was coming to Java in '97 from C++ and I thought of it as a very poor language. 10 years made it almost tolerable - but I still miss ability to redefine operators - does it really matter to anyone who never did it in first place?

Adobe Puts Out AIR for Linux

Fri, 04 Apr 2008 05:30:00 EDT

Adobe has put an alpha pre-release of AIR for Linux up in hopes, it says, of getting feedback from the community, not to mention winning adherents. It's English-only. The company also joined the Linux Foundation to encourage the growth of RIA technologies on Linux, it said. The company says Linux developers can use HTML, AJAX, Flash and Flex to build rich Internet applications (RIAs) that deploy to desktops across operating systems.

Do We Need to Teach Designers Programming?

Sun, 30 Mar 2008 08:30:00 EDT

Fast-spreading rich Internet applications require new skills for development of what was known as boring-looking enterprise applications. In the past, development of the user interface was done by software developers to the best of their design abilities. A couple of buttons here, a grid there, gray background. Their users were happy because they did not see any better. This is about to change...

Flex Best Practices: DTO is the Horseshoe of your Flex Application

Mon, 25 Feb 2008 05:30:00 EST

If I could pass just one Flex advice that would be: Use Data Transfer Objects. Use custom Data Transfer Objects to pass data between server and Flash tiers of your Flex application. Do not use XML. Yes, I know that XML cool. Do not use raw objects.

Watching Java presentations with AJAX, Flex, AIR and JavaFX

Mon, 18 Feb 2008 19:00:00 EST

Parleys.com is a great Web site with lots of recoded videos of technical presentations on a wide variety of Java-related topics. While the original version of Parleys has been created in AJAX, more advanced Flex and AIR versions are now available too. I had a chance to chat with a man behind this project.

Car Manufacturers Go with Adobe Flex RIA

Sat, 16 Feb 2008 13:15:00 EST

OK, car manufactures go Flex. Will they lose or gain customers because of that? Car manufacturers want to have fancy consumer sites. It's a world of RIA, and having interactive Web sites should bring more people to car dealerships. But poorly performing Web site can turn into lost revenues.

Flex Is All About Event-Driven Development

Thu, 14 Feb 2008 02:45:00 EST

This is the first in a series of articles that will cover best practices of Flex development using the code of the soon-to-be-released open source class library theriabook. These components were developed by Flex and Java architects from Farata Systems. Over the past couple of years we've been successfully using various coding techniques and custom components that turned the application development in Flex into a RAD project.

Discovery Channel and EffectiveUI Launch Earth Live

Mon, 11 Feb 2008 00:00:00 EST

Earth Live is an application that EffectiveUI has created in collaboration with Discovery channel. The application helps people to learn the world by engaging them with a more effective UI, so complex information such as climate change can be digestible by a regular person. The application uses digital imagery so the user can interactively create a climate picture of the planet Earth. The UI offers several layers, and you can load the content of the layer (i.e. rain) onto the 3D image of the globe.

Rich Internet Applications - State of the Union

Sun, 10 Feb 2008 11:15:00 EST

We are entering an era of Rich Internet Applications (RIA), and many enterprise development managers are facing the dilemma - which way to go - remain with tried and true Java or .NET technologies or less known (as yet) yet AJAX, Flex, OpenLaszlo...

Flex Bugs Déjà Vu; Memories of Java's Bug Parade

Thu, 07 Feb 2008 06:45:00 EST

Flex is an open source product, which means that you can fix the bugs on your own. This may fork out the product, but that's another story altogether. On the other hand, developers can vote for the bugs so the Flex team can fix them. I remain cautiously optimistic that Flex team will be more responsive than their Java colleagues. Time will tell.

Where To Find Senior Flex Developers?

Mon, 04 Feb 2008 11:30:00 EST

The Adobe Flex enterprise market picks up really fast, and it's obvious that the need for Flex developers will only get bigger and bigger. The question is what kind of Flex developers are in huge demand. I'll share with you the experience of our company, but first, let's look at the diagram from the popular job aggregator.

AMF 3 Specification Is Published

Mon, 04 Feb 2008 11:30:00 EST

Action Message Format (AMF) is a protocol that is used to serialize the data coming into Flash Player or going out to other programming environments that need to communicate with Flash Player. Say, if you create in Java an instance of the class MyOrder, this instance can be converted into a string of bytes, sent over the wire to Flash Player and then recreated there as an instance of the ActionScript object. The rules of how to do this are defined by a communication protocol, such as AMF.

Flex 3, AIR, BlazeDS: Less Than One Moon

Fri, 01 Feb 2008 14:45:00 EST

Unless your Flex 2 project has to go to production this month, switch to Flex 3. Now. Flex 3 final Beta days are almost over and it brings you lots of goodies. If you are still thinking of using AJAX or JSF for your data intensive business application, just stop it, will you! Just take care of your business with Flex 3, AIR, and BlazeDS.

Does Adobe's Promotion of Flex Put Flash Programmers at a Disadvantage?

Thu, 31 Jan 2008 17:00:00 EST

I ran into an interesting blog written by a Flash programmer who feels that Adobe's promotion of Flex puts him and other Flash programmers at a disadvantage. And he knows how to resist!

The Business Case for Rich Internet Applications

Thu, 31 Jan 2008 16:00:00 EST

Less than 10 years ago, still in its infancy, the Internet was a land of promise for businesses. Companies saw bright new ways to increase their agility, reach more customers and to deliver new, never-before-seen services. Unquestionably since then it has transformed the way consumers and businesses exchange information and has become a vital part of nearly every organization's communication and operational architecture.

How to Staff Your Adobe Flex RIA Project Team

Tue, 15 Jan 2008 07:15:00 EST

The main concern of any project manager is if there are enough people in the pool of Flex developers to staff the project. Yes, there is a pool of Flex developers, but let's look at the creature called 'Flex Developer' under the microscope. If you are considering adding Flex to your set of skills, it?s still early in the game and you can join the fast growing Flex community. Decide which group of the Flex developers looks most appealing to you. Set a goal and go for it. Be what you can be.

Can You Use Flex Communication Protocols for Mission-Critical Trading Applications?

Wed, 09 Jan 2008 10:00:00 EST

Redmond Developer News has published an interview with Dr. James Gosling, creator of the Java language, where among other things, he talks about JavaFX and competing technologies. And he made a comment I can't agree with. Here it is: 'If you look at something like Flash, when you get to the much more advanced stuff - richer interfaces, more complex network protocols, more complex APIs - it really falls short.'

Time Magazine's 50 Best Web Sites (Time Uses Flex?)

Thu, 03 Jan 2008 07:00:00 EST

Time Magazine has published their version of the 50 best Web sites of 2007. Check it out. You may or may not agree with their ranking, but I'm sure you'll find some interesting sites there that you did not know about. It's good to see that Time has started using Adobe Flex too.

Do We Need Third-Party Flex Frameworks?

Thu, 27 Dec 2007 09:45:00 EST

This started as a Skype chat room conversation between my colleague Anatole Tartakovsky and myself, and I thought that it would be a good idea to invite more Flex developers to join this discussion. Having said this, I'd like to make it clear that over my career, I've been developing frameworks myself and truly respect people who are capable of creating frameworks, and Anatole has huge experience in this area as well. Here we're just questioning the need to create frameworks not for a general-purpose language like Java, but for a domain-specific framework like Flex.

How Do You Deploy Patches in Your Rich Internet Application?

Tue, 25 Dec 2007 13:30:00 EST

In Java world, the solution to this issue is pretty simple. A typical Java application consists of a number of .jar files (think libraries or swc) and there is a concept of a class path. If a program needs to use a class MyGreatCreation, the Java class loader tries to find it based on the classes or jars listed in the classpath. If there is more than one version of this class in the path, the class loader will grab the first one. This greatly simplifies deploying any patches in Java production applications. Just make changes to your class and place it in the jar that is listed first in the classpath. Then deploy just this jar in production, and the loader will be happy to pick up the brand new version of MyGreatCreation.

Mouse Wheel Support in Flex

Fri, 21 Dec 2007 11:00:00 EST

Just two of the text fields on your Flex window have to support the mouse wheel. The user turns the wheel, the numeric field in these fields is incremented or decremented. Let's do it.

A Quick Analysis of BlazeDS Offering

Thu, 20 Dec 2007 12:00:00 EST

Release of BlazeDS is a great help from the Flex enterprise adoption perspective. On the technical side, BlazeDS provides a lightweight replacement for LiveCycle Data Services ES. The remoting part seems to be identical to the LCDS offering. But how the LCDS implementation is different from BlazeDS? What's under the hood?

Who's on the Market of Fast Communication Protocols for Flex?

Thu, 13 Dec 2007 13:30:00 EST

There are different ways of connecting Web clients written in Flex with the server-side applications being that Java, PHP, Ruby on Rails, ASP or anything else that can generate HTTP responses. Up till today, the least expensive way was by using Flex objects HTTPService or WebService. You did not have to purchase any expensive communication software to use these two Flex objects. Adobe has released Beta version of BlazeDS. This changes the market of the fast Web 2.0, but there other players here too.

BlazeDS: A Breaking News for the Adobe Flex Community!

Thu, 13 Dec 2007 10:00:00 EST

In my opinion this is THE biggest announcement that I?ve heard from Adobe since the release Flex 2 in the Summer of 2006. This is bigger than open sourcing Flex. This is bigger than AIR. Here's the news: Adobe is open sourcing AMF protocol and messaging under LGPL V3. Christophe Coenraets, a Senior Flex Evangelist from Adobe, told me about this new free product called BlazeDS. While many people are using Flex for creating cool widgets that can make your Web page prettier, enterprise Flex developers have to deal with such boring things as bringing data to the client. And they want to do this as fast as possible. AMF3 protocol allows your Web application to send the data over the wire at lease 10 times faster than a regular HTTP.

The ABCs of AMF Format

Mon, 03 Dec 2007 08:15:00 EST

The AMF file format is a binary file format representing a serialized ActionScript object. This file type is used in many places within the Flash Player and AIR for data storage and data exchange. In Flash Player 9 and AIR, the flash.utils.ByteArray class is the primary way AMF is handled.

Five Serious Warnings to Adobe Flex Development Managers

Mon, 29 Oct 2007 15:00:00 EDT

I assume that you are already sold on using Adobe Flex for developing the front end of your next rich Internet application. As of the end of 2007, it's the best choice you can make, really. But after spending almost two years working on real-world projects that involve Flex, I can see a number of roadblocks that prevent Adobe Flex from being the only solution for RIA.

A Complete Application with RPC Communications...

Fri, 12 Oct 2007 11:00:00 EDT

For security reasons (similar to the Java sandbox concept), Flash clients can only access the domains they come from, unless other servers declare, explicitly or implicitly, trust to SWF files downloaded from our domain by a corresponding record in a crossdomain.xml file. But our portfolio SWF wasn't loaded from finance.yahoo.com, and we aren't allowed to install crossdomain.xml on the Yahoo! servers. We'll use another technique called Flex proxy.

Top Ten Tips for Working with Cairngorm

Wed, 10 Oct 2007 13:45:00 EDT

Since people's programming background varies in Flex, these are not facts, just my opinions based on my experiences using ARP & Cairngorm for over 2 years. Furthermore, there are alternatives to Cairngorm, I just cannot try them as much as I like. Now that I'm doing product work, I can't just 'try this framework on this new project'. I live in the same code base longer supporting existing clients, and can't do dramatic re-factoring without getting fired.

Applying the Mediator Design Pattern in Flex

Tue, 09 Oct 2007 08:00:00 EDT

Any complex screen, more or less, of a business application consists of a number of containers (Panel, Canvas, VBox) and controls (Buttons, DataGrids, Comboboxes). In the best case scenario, a UI designer gives you a nice-looking screen prototype that s/he put together without bothering too much about which Flex components you are going to select to implement the required functionality. Now what? Just look at this screen below that consists of a number of nested components and containers, which I numbered for easier reference. For simplicity (or should I say for better abstraction?) I didn't use the actual components such as panels and dropdowns, but I'm sure you can extrapolate this image to your real-world business application.