Adobe Flex is a collection of technologies released by Adobe Systems for the development and deployment of cross platform, rich Internet applications based on the proprietary Adobe Flash platform. The initial release in March 2004 by Macromedia included a software development kit, an IDE, and a J2EE integration application known as Flex Data Services. Since Adobe acquired Macromedia in 2005, subsequent releases of Flex no longer require a license for Flex Data Services, which has become a separate product rebranded as LiveCycle Data Services. Image File history File links No higher resolution available. ... For other uses, see Software developer (disambiguation). ... Adobe Systems (pronounced a-DOE-bee IPA: ) (NASDAQ: ADBE) (LSE: ABS) is an American computer software company headquartered in San Jose, California, USA. Adobe was founded in December 1982[1] by John Warnock and Charles Geschke, who established the company after leaving Xerox PARC in order to develop and sell... Code complete redirects here. ... An operating system (OS) is a software that manages computer resources and provides programmers with an interface used to access those resources. ... Mac OS X (pronounced ) is a line of graphical operating systems developed, marketed, and sold by Apple Inc. ... This article is about operating systems that use the Linux kernel. ... Windows redirects here. ... See Language (journal) for the linguistics journal. ... For the geographical term, see ria. ... A software license is a legal agreement which may take the form of a proprietary or gratuitous license as well as a memorandum of contract between a producer and a user of computer software. ... In computing, the Mozilla Public License (MPL) is an open source and free software license. ... A website (alternatively, Web site or web site) is a collection of Web pages, images, videos or other digital assets that is hosted on one or several Web server(s), usually accessible via the Internet, cell phone or a LAN. A Web page is a document, typically written in HTML... Adobe Systems (pronounced a-DOE-bee IPA: ) (NASDAQ: ADBE) (LSE: ABS) is an American computer software company headquartered in San Jose, California, USA. Adobe was founded in December 1982[1] by John Warnock and Charles Geschke, who established the company after leaving Xerox PARC in order to develop and sell... For the geographical term, see ria. ... Adobe Flash - previously called Shockwave Flash and Macromedia Flash - is a set of multimedia technologies developed and distributed by Adobe Systems and earlier by Macromedia. ... Macromedia was an American graphics and web development software house headquartered in San Francisco, California producing such products as Macromedia Flash. ... A software development kit (SDK or devkit) is typically a set of development tools that allows a software engineer to create applications for a certain software package, software framework, hardware platform, computer system, video game console, operating system, or similar. ... An integrated development environment (IDE), also known as integrated design environment and integrated debugging environment, is a programming environment that has been packaged as an application program,that assists computer programmers in developing software. ... Java Platform, Enterprise Edition or Java EE is a widely used platform for server programming in the Java programming language. ... The introduction to this article provides insufficient context for those unfamiliar with the subject matter. ...

In February 2008, Adobe released the Flex 3 SDK under the open source Mozilla Public License. Adobe Flash Player, the runtime on which Flex applications are viewed, and Flex Builder, the IDE used to build Flex applications, remain proprietary. Open source refers to projects that are open to the public and which draw on other projects that are freely available to the general public. ... In computing, the Mozilla Public License (MPL) is an open source and free software license. ... The Adobe Flash Player is a widely distributed multimedia and application player created and distributed by Macromedia (a division of Adobe Systems). ... An integrated development environment (IDE), also known as integrated design environment and integrated debugging environment, is a programming environment that has been packaged as an application program,that assists computer programmers in developing software. ...

Overview

Traditional application programmers found it challenging to adapt to the animation metaphor upon which the Flash Platform was originally designed. Flex seeks to minimize this problem by providing a workflow and programming model that is familiar to these developers. MXML, an XML-based markup language, offers a way to build and lay out graphic user interfaces. Interactivity is achieved through the use of ActionScript, the core language of Flash Player that is based on the ECMAScript standard. This article is about metaphor in literature and rhetoric. ... MXML is an XML-based user interface markup language first introduced by the former Macromedia in March 2004. ... The Extensible Markup Language (XML) is a general-purpose markup language. ... A graphical user interface (or GUI, pronounced gooey) is a method of interacting with a computer through a metaphor of direct manipulation of graphical images and widgets in addition to text. ... ActionScript is a scripting language based on ECMAScript, used primarily for the development of websites and software using the Adobe Flash Player platform (in the form of SWF files embedded into Web pages). ... ECMAScript is a scripting programming language, standardized by Ecma International in the ECMA-262 specification. ...

The Flex SDK comes with a set of user interface components including buttons, list boxes, trees, data grids, several text controls, and various layout containers. Charts and graphs are available as an add-on. Other features like web services, drag and drop, modal dialogs, animation effects, application states, form validation, and other interactions round out the application framework. A web service is a collection of protocols and standards used for exchanging data between applications. ...

In a multi-tiered model, Flex applications serve as the presentation tier. Unlike page-based HTML applications, Flex applications provide a stateful client where significant changes to the view don't require loading a new page. Similarly, Flex and Flash Player provide many useful ways to send and load data to and from server-side components without requiring the client to reload the view. Though this functionality offered advantages over HTML and JavaScript development in the past, the increased support for XMLHttpRequest in major browsers has made asynchronous data loading a common practice in HTML-based development too. For the American alcohol distributing system, see Three-tier (alcohol distribution). ... XMLHttpRequest (XHR) is an API that can be used by JavaScript, and other web browser scripting languages to transfer XML and other text data to and from a web server using HTTP, by establishing an independent and asynchronous communication channel between a web pages Client-Side and Server-Side. ...

Technologies that are commonly compared to Flex include OpenLaszlo, Ajax, XUL, JavaFX and Windows Presentation Foundation technologies such as Silverlight. OpenLaszlo is an open source platform for the development and delivery of web applications with a usable human interface (sometimes called rich Internet applications) on the World Wide Web. ... AJAX redirects here. ... XUL (pronounced zool ()), the XML User Interface Language, is an XML user interface markup language developed by the Mozilla project for use in its cross-platform applications, such as Firefox. ... JavaFX is a family of products and technologies from Sun Microsystems, first announced at the JavaOne developers conference in May 2007. ... This subsystem is a part of . ... Microsoft Silverlight (code-named Windows Presentation Foundation/Everywhere or WPF/E) is a proprietary XAML-based runtime for browser-based Rich Internet Applications, providing a subset of the animation, vector graphics, and video playback capabilities of Windows Presentation Foundation. ...

Macromedia Flex Server 1.0 and 1.5

Macromedia targeted the enterprise application development market with its initial releases of Flex 1.0 and 1.5. The company offered the technology at a price around US$15000 per CPU. Required for deployment, the J2EE application server compiled MXML and ActionScript on-the-fly into Flash applications (binary SWF files). Each server license included 5 licenses for the Flex Builder IDE. CPU redirects here. ... Java 2 Platform, Enterprise Edition or Java EE (formerly also J2EE) is a programming platform – part of the Java platform – for developing and running distributed multi-tier architecture applications, based largely on modular components running on an application server. ... MXML is an XML-based user interface markup language first introduced by the former Macromedia in March 2004. ... ActionScript is a scripting language based on ECMAScript, used primarily for the development of websites and software using the Adobe Flash Player platform (in the form of SWF files embedded into Web pages). ... This article is about the proprietary file format . ...

Adobe Flex 2

Adobe significantly changed the licensing model for the Flex product line with the release of Flex 2. The core Flex 2 SDK, consisting of the command-line compilers and the complete class library of user interface components and utilities, was made available as a free download. Complete Flex applications can be built and deployed with only the Flex 2 SDK, which contains no limitations or restrictions compared to the same SDK included with the Flex Builder IDE.

Adobe based the new version of Flex Builder on the open source Eclipse platform. The company released two versions of Flex Builder 2, Standard and Professional. The Professional version includes the Flex Charting Components library. Eclipse is an open-source software framework written primarily in Java. ...

Enterprise-oriented services remain available through Flex Data Services 2. This server component provides data synchronization, data push, publish-subscribe and automated testing. Unlike Flex 1.0 and 1.5, Flex Data Services is not required for the deployment of Flex applications.

Coinciding with the release of Flex 2, Adobe introduced a new version of the ActionScript programming language, known as Actionscript 3, reflecting the latest ECMAScript specification. The use of ActionScript 3 and Flex 2 requires version 9 or later of the Flash Player runtime. Flash Player 9 incorporated a new and more robust virtual machine for running the new ActionScript 3. ActionScript is a scripting language based on ECMAScript, used primarily for the development of websites and software using the Adobe Flash Player platform (in the form of SWF files embedded into Web pages). ... ECMAScript is a scripting programming language, standardized by Ecma International in the ECMA-262 specification. ...

Flex was the first Macromedia product to be re-branded under the Adobe name. Adobe Systems (pronounced a-DOE-bee IPA: ) (NASDAQ: ADBE) (LSE: ABS) is an American computer software company headquartered in San Jose, California, USA. Adobe was founded in December 1982[1] by John Warnock and Charles Geschke, who established the company after leaving Xerox PARC in order to develop and sell...

Adobe Flex 3

On April 26, 2007 Adobe announced their intent to release the Flex 3 SDK (which excludes the Flex Builder IDE and the LiveCycle Data Services) under the terms of the Mozilla Public License.^[1] Adobe released the first beta of Flex 3, codenamed Moxie, in June 2007. Major enhancements include integration with the new versions of Adobe's Creative Suite products, support for AIR (Adobe's new desktop application runtime), and the addition of profiling and refactoring tools to the Flex Builder IDE. is the 116th day of the year (117th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2007 (MMVII) was a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar in the 21st century. ... In computing, the Mozilla Public License (MPL) is an open source and free software license. ... Apollo is a product being developed by Adobe Systems, which aims to provide a means for developing and using cross-operating system rich internet applications. ...

In October 2007, Adobe released the second beta of Flex 3.
On December 12, 2007, Adobe released the third beta of Flex 3.
On February 25, 2008, Adobe released Flex 3 and Adobe AIR 1.0.

Adobe Flex 4

Adobe has announced that Flex 4.0 (code named Gumbo) will be released in 2009. Even though this announcement has been made, the product plan has yet to be completed. Image File history File links Gnome_globe_current_event. ... Software redirects here. ... Software development stages In computer programming, development stage terminology expresses how the development of a piece of software has progressed and how much further development it may require. ... Image File history File links Nuvola_apps_kpager. ... 2009 (MMIX) will be a common year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. ...

Some themes that have been mentioned by Adobe that will be incorporated into Flex 4 are as follows:

• Design in Mind: The framework will be designed for continuous collaboration between designers and developers.
• Accelerated Development: Be able to take application development from conceptual to reality quickly.
• Horizontal Platform Improvements: Compiler performance, language enhancements, BiDi components, enhanced text. (Speculation derived from Adobe Systems)
• Broadening Horizons: Finding ways to make a framework lighter, supporting more deployment runtimes, runtime MXML. (Speculation derived from Adobe Systems)

Flex 4 milestones: (Speculation derived form Adobe Systems)

• Scope determined, April 2008
• Beta 1, late 2008
• 4.0 final, 2009

2008 (MMVIII) is the current year, a leap year that started on Tuesday of the Anno Domini (or common era), in accordance to the Gregorian calendar. ... 2008 (MMVIII) is the current year, a leap year that started on Tuesday of the Anno Domini (or common era), in accordance to the Gregorian calendar. ... 2009 (MMIX) will be a common year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. ...

LiveCycle Data Services

Main article: Flex Data Services

LiveCycle Data Services (previously called Flex Data Services) is a server-side complement to the main Flex SDK and Flex Builder IDE and is part of a family of server-based products available from Adobe. Deployed as a Java EE application, LiveCycle Data Services adds the following capabilities to Flex applications: The introduction to this article provides insufficient context for those unfamiliar with the subject matter. ...

• Remoting, which allows Flex client applications to invoke methods on Java server objects directly. Similar to Java remote method invocation (RMI), remoting handles data marshalling automatically and uses a binary data transfer format.
• Messaging, which provides the "publish" end of the "publish/subscribe" design pattern. The Flash client can publish events to a topic defined on the server, subscribe to events broadcast from the message service. One of the common use cases for this is real-time streaming of data, such as financial data or system status information.
• Data management services, which provides a programming model for automatically managing data sets that have been downloaded to the Flex client. Once data is loaded from the server, changes are automatically tracked and can be synchronized with the server at the request of the application. Clients are also notified if changes to the data set are made on the server.
• PDF document generation, providing APIs for generating PDF documents by merging client data or graphics with templates stored on the server.

BlazeDS

Previously available only as part of Adobe LiveCycle Data Services ES, Adobe is announcing its plans to contribute the proven BlazeDS technologies to the community under the LGPL v3. BlazeDS gives the rapidly growing Adobe developer community free access to the powerful remoting and messaging technologies developed by Adobe. Image File history File links Gnome_globe_current_event. ... Software redirects here. ... Software development stages In computer programming, development stage terminology expresses how the development of a piece of software has progressed and how much further development it may require. ... Image File history File links Nuvola_apps_kpager. ... The GNU Lesser General Public License (formerly the GNU Library General Public License) or LGPL is a free software license published by the Free Software Foundation. ...

Concurrent with this pre-release of BlazeDS, Adobe is publishing the AMF binary data protocol specification, on which the BlazeDS remoting implementation is based, and is committed to partnering with the community to make this protocol available for every major server platform. The source code will be available for download early 2008. AMF is a binary format based loosely on the Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP). ...

Flex and ColdFusion

Flex 2 offers special integration with ColdFusion MX 7. The ColdFusion MX 7.0.2 release adds updated Flash Remoting to support ActionScript 3, a Flex Data Services event gateway, and the Flex Data Services assembler. Flex Builder 2 also adds extensions for ColdFusion providing a set of wizards for RAD Flex development. A subset of Flex 1.5 is also embedded into ColdFusion MX 7 middleware platform, for use in the ColdFusion Flash forms feature. It is possible to use this framework to write rich internet applications, although its intended purpose is for rich forms only. This article or section does not adequately cite its references or sources. ...

Flex Application Development Process

Everything below is directly sourced from the help file in version 2.0 Beta 3:

• Define an application interface using a set of pre-defined components (forms, buttons, and so on)
• Arrange components into a user interface design
• Use styles and themes to define the visual design
• Add dynamic behavior (one part of the application interacting with another, for example)
• Define and connect to data services as needed
• Build the source code into an SWF file that runs in the Flash Player

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 Beta 3 - May 2006
• Flex 2.0 Final- June 28, 2006
• Flex 2.0.1 - January 5, 2007
• Flex 3.0 Beta 1 - June 11, 2007
• Flex 3.0 Beta 2 - October 1, 2007
• Flex 3.0 Beta 3 - December 12, 2007
• Flex 3.0 - February 25, 2008

Notable sites using Flex

Notable sites using Flex include:

• Pikeo online photo sharing
• Amsterdam-Schiphol Airport
• Sherwin-Williams Color Visualizer
• Sony Ericsson Product Catalogue
• Yahoo! Messenger for the Web

An editor has expressed a concern that the subject of the article does not satisfy the notability guideline or one of the following guidelines for inclusion on Wikipedia: Biographies, Books, Companies, Fiction, Music, Neologisms, Numbers, Web content, or several proposals for new guidelines. ... Schiphol (IATA: AMS, ICAO: EHAM) (municipality Haarlemmermeer) is the Netherlands main airport. ... The Sherwin-Williams Company (NYSE: SHW) is a Cleveland, Ohio, USA-based company in the general building materials industry. ... For an arrangement of Sony Ericsson products, see list of Sony Ericsson products Sony Ericsson is a joint venture established in 2001 by the Japanese consumer electronics company Sony Corporation and the Swedish telecommunications company Ericsson to make mobile phones. ... “Y!M” redirects here. ...

See also

• Adobe AIR (formerly Adobe Apollo)
• Microsoft Silverlight
• OpenLaszlo
• The ZK Framework
• JavaFX
• Comparison between Ajax and Flex

Adobe Integrated Runtime (AIR), codenamed and originally named Apollo[1], is a cross-OS runtime environment for building Rich Internet Applications, using Flash, Flex, HTML, Ajax, that can be deployed as a desktop application. ... Microsoft Silverlight is a browser plugin that allows web applications to be developed with features like animation, vector graphics, and audio-video playback - features that characterize a rich internet application. ... OpenLaszlo is an open source platform for the development and delivery of web applications with a usable human interface (sometimes called rich Internet applications) on the World Wide Web. ... Wikibooks has more about this subject: ZK ZK is an open-source, all Java, Ajax Web application framework that enables rich UI for Web applications with no JavaScript and little programming. ... JavaFX is a family of products and technologies from Sun Microsystems, first announced at the JavaOne developers conference in May 2007. ... Ajax and Adobe Flex are popular Web development technologies to create Rich Internet Applications. ...

References

In 1989 Ziff Davis Inc. ... 2008 (MMVIII) is the current year, a leap year that started on Tuesday of the Anno Domini (or common era), in accordance to the Gregorian calendar. ... is the 40th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ...

External links

• Official Adobe Flex site
• Flex.org - Flex community website
• Web 2.0 to 3.0 Articles,Tutorials,Documents...
• Adobe Flex 3 Help
• List of 31 Flex APIs, Libraries, Components and Tools
• Adobe Developer Connection for Flex
• Official Open Source site for Flex