Adobe Flex

April 12, 2008 · Filed Under Product Reviews, Technology

Adobe Flex is gaining more traction as a development platform. The framework produces a flash based output which can be consumed universally by clients agnostically to browser, OS or type. Flex is much easier to edit and create then native flash formats, using an easy to learn scriptable language.

As a web developer, you may always find yourself looking for possible web development applications that would suit your needs, providing a balance of rapid development, easy maintenance and wide cross-compatibility.

Most make use of JavaScript, Active-X and/or AJAX in order to make your sites dynamic and interactive. These traditional frameworks allow for rapid deployment - but necessitate heavy graphical work to make the app user friendly.

To answer the need for better application, the Adobe flex was released which is an open framework for creating significant web applications that that can be installed on major browsers, desktops, and operating systems.

Adobe Flex paves the way to make advanced application that can be used by traditional programmers. Before its release, traditional flash programmers spent hours with actionscript creating customer friendly but difficult to maintain flash-based apps and sites. The Flash platform was innovative and gained critical traction as a default standard over years.

Taking the next step Adobe’s Flex seeks to reduce the problem through the means of providing a workflow and programming model that is familiar to developers. It is programmed with MXML which is an XML-based markup language offers a way to rapidly build and lay out graphic user interfaces. Furthermore, one can also take benefit of interactivity by using ActionScript which is essentially the core language of Flash Player which was made using ECMA Script standard.

Like any other applications, the Adobe Flex has also its limitations. It is still a Flash application and therefore it is limited to what a Flash player can do. True interaction with the desktop is difficult - the Flex platform is not a browser, but is usually a web-based delivery (ie. drag and drop from Desktop to a Player is not feasible). This should be made possible through the release of Apollo.

The Flex popup window is limited to being shown within the dimensions of the player that created it. Incomparable to the popup window in a browser in where you can relocates them to your desktop, the Adobe Flex popup windows can’t go outside the area occupied by the player. Also, the Flash SWF format is a published specification meaning, it is doable for other vendors to create tools that produce Flash files.

Because the introduction of Adobe Flex was favored by the public, the Flex 2 which is an improved version of the first was made which is programmed with command-line compilers and a comprehensive class library of user interface components and utilities.

This program can be downloaded for free and it has no limitations or restrictions compared to the first. There is also the Flex 3 which was launched on April 26, 2007 and is equipped with Flex Builder IDE and the LiveCycle Data Services.

Adobe proclaims that in the near future they will launch the Flex 4 with Gumbo as a code name. The product plan has yet to be completed and although no one really knows what feature this one has, it is surely better than the other 3.

Flex is worth a look as a development and delivery platform if you are willing to work with a Flash based system. Take a look if you were turned off by Flash years ago and haven’t kept up with it.

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