Moving to Flex and Actionscript 3

Joined: 05 May 2005 Posts: 8 Location: Dillsburg, PA

If you take a look at Adobe's developer site there is a lot of hype about Flex. Up until a few weeks ago I had no idea what Flex was or what it would do for me. Our current Web Viewer is written for Flash 7 in Actionscript 2. While not a good programming environment for a C style person like me, it gets the job done. This is where Flex comes in.

With the introduction of Actionscript 3, Adobe has created a true object orientated programing language. This makes some of the interesting things you can do work the way you would think. Actionscript 3 is part of Flash 9 and those of you that stick with writing Flash Applications will have the ability to use it, and its predefined libraries, with the introduction of Flash Professional 9.

But who wants to wait for that? If your willing to learn a new layout method you can take advantage of Actionscipt 3 now by using Flex. Flex replaces the need for a time line and graphical layout environment. Flex introduces a new MXML format for describing the layout of objects and their properties. This powerful ability is useless without a rich set of interface objects. With Flash you are stuck creating all of these objects yourself. Flex, on the other hand, defines just about anything that you find in a standard interface. Things like buttons, scroll bars, progress indicators, menus, etc. can be found in the Flex library. For a preview of what's available check out the Style Explorer over on Adobe's web site.

Using Flex to build applications is relatively quick once you get a handle on the new MXML format and familiarize yourself with the API. MXML's xml base makes it easy to add and modify the interface. Good Actionscript 3 integration makes it simple to add small code chunks to control interface items or complete classes for more complex operations. While young, Flex is positioned to be a great programing environment. Stay tuned for more information on setting up and using Flex.