Adobe Flex (Macromedia Flex) is a term that covers a range of technologies published since March 2004 by Macromedia to support the development and deployment of rich Internet applications based on its proprietary platform Flash.
The traditional application developers see it as a challenge to adapt the metaphor of animation on the platform which was originally built Flash. Flex elegantly minimizes this problem by providing a workflow and programming model that is familiar to application developers.
Flex was initially released as an implementation of J2EE or library label JSP to compile the Flex markup language (MXML) and run through ActionScript Flash applications (binary SWF files). Later versions of Flex support the creation of files that are compiled, and can be distributed online without the need for a server license.
The purpose of Flex is to allow developers to build Web applications quickly and easily Rich Internet Applications, also called RIAs. In a multi-layer, Flex applications are the level of presentation.
Flex emphasizes the development of graphical user interfaces using an XML language called MXML. Flex has several components that provide functionality and features such as Web services, remote objects, drag and drop, ordered columns, graphics, animation effects and simple interactions. The client only loads the application once, thereby improving the flow of data from applications based on HTML (eg. PHP, ASP, JSP, CFMX) which require executing templates on the server for each action. The language and structure of files looking for Flex decoupling of the logic and design.
The Flex server also acts as a gateway allowing the client to communicate with web services XML and remote objects (such as Coldfusion CFCs, Java classes, and anyone who supports the Action Message Format).
Alternatives to Flex are Google Web Toolkit, data centers, OpenLaszlo and Silverlight from Microsoft.
For those working with opensource software adobe also available on this site http://opensource.adobe.com/ where the Flex SDK and includes projects by developers.
Directory structure of a project in Flex Builder.
When creating a project in Flex Builder automatically creates a directory structure
This application consists of an application directory that contains different types of files required to compile and run the application, these are:
. Settings: Contains settings for the flex builder
bin-debug: debug contains the swf and the files needed for debugging
html-template contains the files to be used specifically for detecting the player
src: the sources of the mxml files
libs: Library to implement the desired application.
Link: Via Officical Site , OpenSource (Via Adobe) , LiveDoc (Via Adobe), Flex Components (Via Flex.org), Adobe Flex Help (Via Adobe), 36 Cool Flex Tools (Via Seantheflexguy), Flex Developer Center (Via Adobe),
