Designer’s Challenge – Web-based Applications using Adobe Flex and OpenInsight Clay Borne President CLB IT

Adobe Flash Player According to Adobe

Adobe Flash Player The Reality

Visual Layout Flex Builder 3 Code Hinting Debugging Skinning and Styling Flex Builder 3 Command-line Compiler & Debugger MXML and ActionScript 3.0 Flex Framework and Class Library Flex Charting Extensible Charting Components Flex 3

Visual Layout Flex Builder 3 Code Hinting Debugging Skinning and Styling Flex Builder 3 Command-line Compiler & Debugger MXML and ActionScript 3.0 Flex Framework and Class Library Flex Charting Extensible Charting Components Flex 3 Open Source

Flex Development Concepts UI developed in MXML (Multimedia XML) Code is written in ActionScript 3 – ActionScript is Javascript with strong typing, classes, and inheritance. – You can still do all the dynamic typing, prototype based inheritance like with Javascript if you want. Flex SDK – Compiler to take MXML and Actionscript and compile it into a SWF

Flex Framework Written entirely in ActionScript Aimed at the application developer The compiler takes MXML and compiles it into ActionScript code that leverages the Framework

What’s in the Flex Framework? Form Controls – buttons, text boxes, lists, checkboxes, rich text editor, color selector, date selector, and more Menu Controls – pop-up menus & menu bars Media Components – images, audio, video Layout Containers – grids, forms, boxes, canvas, panel, horz/vert dividers, etc.

Flex vs. AJAX Cross browser compatible Flash Player runs in MAC, Windows, Linux, Solaris Compiled Source More matured, structured Better documentation, online communities Better charting capabilities Better debugging capabilities Better client access using Adobe AIR Really SEXY look-and-feel It’s javascript + more – Asychronous – Object model – Modularised

Where does Flex fit in? As Presentation Layer Any language on the backend SWF can be served by any HTTP web server – Does not need to be hosted on same web server as OECGI Can serve as UI for different applications Can be “THE” application too With Adobe AIR, can work as Desktop Client Code once, port to web

OpenInsight Database How Flex works… Browser Flash Player Web Server running OECGI Flex Builder IDE Flex SDK MXML ActionScript Flex Class Library Compile.swf Data.swf Get.swf

Flex for Designers MXML – HTML, Actionscript – Javascript Flex builder comes with WYSIWYG designer CSS support States Management

Flex for Developers Syntax similar to JavaScript, Java, and C++ Dynamic Language – Classes and Objects – Encapsulation – Abstraction – Inheritance Data Connectivity – HTTPService, RemoteObject, WebService, XML Validation – Validator, DateValidator, ZipCodeValidator Effects – Zoom, Resize, Move, Fade

What About the IPhone\ITab?

OpenInsight Web Capabilities One table can handle multiple, sustained, and repeated writes to the file No theoretical size limit for a table OECGI handles the web service really well

Communicating With OI

Flex Capabilities Demo

Thank You! Questions?