FLEX - Day 1  

Contents

1. Evolution of computer applications
2. Page based architecture vs RIA
3. RIA, Flex
4. Overview of flex application
5. UI elements
6. View states
7. Events

RIA

• Standardized cross-platform and cross-browser support

• Cleanly separate presentation logic and application logic

• HTTP is stateless (cookies and sessions)

• HTML/JS/AJAX

• RIAs based on Plugins

  • Silverlight

  • Java

  • Actionscript/MXML

FLEX

• Similar to HTML/JS/AJAX - dynamic loading of data in the background

• Rich set of controls and data visualization components.

Components

• AS 3.0 - OO language

• MXML - declarative language

• CSS

• Flash Player 10 - additional smaller devices, speed, memory footprints

• Flex SDK - extensive class library, free

• Flash Builder 4 - IDE built on eclipse

• Create a new project

• Parts of the Flash Builder workbench: editors, views, and perspectives

• Folder structure

• Code hinting and local history

• Work in Source view and use Design view to see the layout.

  • Never drag and drop components to create the UI.

• Debugging an application with the Flash Builder debugger

• What happens while you Run the application?

  • SWF file generation.

Overview - flex application

• Basic UI elements

  • Label, Text box, Text area etc.

• Containers

• Few can be skinned and few exist to ensure children are grouped

  • Group (no visual appearance), SkinnableContainer (group with appearance), BorderContainer, Panel, Application, NavigationContent

• Layouts

  • Basic Layout

  • Horizontal Layout

  • Vertical Layout

  • Tile Layout

UI elements

VIEW STATES ?

• What are events?

  • event dispatcher

  • event handler

• Types of events

  • User events

  • System events

Events

Doubts ?