Getting Started with Flex 3: An Adobe Developer Library
Pocket Guide for Developers, 3rd edition
Reviewed by Robert Pritchett
Introduction
Discover how easy RIA
development can be with this one-of-a-kind handbook from the Adobe Developer
Library. Several clear, step-by-step mini-tutorials teach you about web
services, event handling, designing user interfaces with reusable components,
and more. After finishing this guide, you'll be able to build Flash
applications ranging from widgets to full-featured RIAs using the Flex SDK and
Flex Builder 3.0. With Getting Started with Flex 3, you will:
á
Walk through sample RIA
projects and see examples of amazing applications people have built with Flex
á
Work with ActionScript 3.0
and the MXML markup language
á
Build user interfaces using
the controls and tools available with the framework
á
Get a tour of controls
available commercially and through open source
á
Learn how Flex integrates
with ASP.NET, ColdFusion, PHP, and J2EE in the server
á
Build Flex-based widgets that
let you display real-time data
á
Use advanced controls to
build 3D graphs, data dashboards, mapping applications, and more
You'll find complete code for video players, a slideshow,
a chat client, and an RSS reader, just to name a few. You also get plenty of
tips, tricks, and techniques to leverage your existing programming skills,
whether you come from an open source or Visual Studio-intensive background.
What I Learned
Flex is an XML-based language that is compiled into Adobe
Flash applications.
The book is a quick tour for newbees to Flex who have been
stymied in their creativeness by frames or other esoteric web-based coding
– and maybe want to see what all the huff is about – outside the
Mac developing arena.
This is mostly for folks not used to doing movies with
Keynote > QuickTime or AppleScripting to JavaScripting and want to delve
into the depths of ActionScripting and doing movies using Flex.
Remember, this is an Adobe platform function. The pocket
book has 10 chapters on installation, on-line apps and multimedia, a few
websites that use it ( i.e. pounce.com)
and some desktop apps that also use it, a walk-through on how to build
an app, nework apps that are supported, supported controls - like 3D graphing,
doing movies for other websites, and using Adobe's AIR for putting Flex apps on
the desktop (some of which are invading Mac apps). Chapter 10 is more like an
Appendix of resources (books, sites, etc.)
Conclusions
If you don't mind "Flexing" some coding muscle,
this is a good place to start.
