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Macromedia Flex

Macromedia Flex. Flex is an application server initially released in March of 2004. In short, it is a J2EE application or JSP tag library that compiles Flex Mark-Up Language (MXML) and ActionScript on-the-fly into Flash applications (binary SWF files).

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Macromedia Flex

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  1. Macromedia Flex

  2. Flex is an application server initially released in March of 2004. • In short, it is a J2EE application or JSP tag library that compiles Flex Mark-Up Language (MXML) and ActionScript on-the-fly into Flash applications (binary SWF files). • The goal of Flex is to allow Web application developers to quickly and easily build Rich Internet Applications, otherwise known as RIAs. • In a multi-tiered model, Flex applications serve as the Presentation Tier. • These applications were already possible using Macromedia Flash MX; however, for non-Flash developers, many found it challenging to develop in an animation based environment.

  3. Leveraging existing Flash capabilities, Flex allows developers to focus on their business logic using an XML based language called MXML, yet harness all the rich UI features that are associated with Flash. • Flex comes with various components and features that make capabilities such as web services, remote objects, drag and drop, sortable columns, charting/graphing, built in animation effects, and other interface interactions simple. Since the client only loads once, application workflow is significantly improved versus HTML based applications (eg. PHP, ASP, JSP, CFMX) which require executing templates on the server with every action. • Also because of its nature, Flash/Flex applications have data completely decoupled from design. • Since MXML files convert to ActionScript, Flex developers can code components directly in ActionScript. • The Flex server also acts as a gateway to allow the client to communicate with XML Web Services and Remote Objects (such as Coldfusion CFCs, Java Classes, and anything else that supports the Action Message Format).

  4. Pricing • Targeted towards the enterprise, Flex is currently priced as US$15000 per CPU. • Each license include 5 Flex Builder licenses. Flex builder is currently based on Dreamweaver MX 2004. • Flex 2 changes the licensing model, offering the Flex Builder as a standalone IDE for approximately $1000 USD per license. • The new Flex builder, previously named 'Zorn', is based on the Eclipse IDE. The enterprise server will be available for those who require advanced features such as data push and automated testing. Flex 2 supports ActionScript 3, and requires Flash Player 9 (also currently in Beta). • Flex will be the first Macromedia product to be rebranded as Adobe, starting with the 2.0 release.

  5. Competitors • An alternative to Flex is the OpenLaszlo platform, an open source project which predates Flex. • Ajax application development also competes with Flex.

  6. Limitations • Limitations of the technology are mostly a result of limitations in the Macromedia Flash player. • Because some business logic is pushed onto the client, large applications can require a fair amount of CPU power to run smoothly. • CPU utilization has improved with each subsequent Flash player release, but is still problematic. • Macromedia embeds a subset of Flex 1.5 into its Coldfusion MX 7 middleware platform, for use in Flash forms. • It is possible to use this framework to write rich internet applications, although its intended purpose is for rich forms only and this functionality is not supported by Macromedia.

  7. Release history • Flex 1.0 - March 2004 • Flex 1.5 - October 2004 • Flex 2.0 (Alpha) - October 2005 • Flex 2.0 Beta 1 - February 2006 • Flex 2.0 Beta 2 - March 2006 • Flex 2.0 FINAL - June 2006

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