Flex3 architecture and features

Flex3 architecture and features

I am evaluating Adobe Flex technology to do rich internet applications. Sometimes a picture is worth a thousand words: so in the following I sketched an overview of Flex programming capabilities.Diagram focuses on how to create a Flash Application (compiling MXML and Actionscript files using the free Flex SDK) and on what kind of interactions a Flex-made application can perform with external systems.

Flex is a highly productive, free open source framework for building and maintaining expressive web applications that deploy consistently on all major browsers, desktops, and operating systems.

Protocols

• AMF (Action Message Format) used for serializing objects
• RTMP (Real Time Messaging protocol) used for messaging
  

Action Message Format or AMF is a binary format based loosely on the Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP). It is used primarily to exchange data between an Adobe Flash application and a database, using a Remote Procedure Call.Each AMF message contains a body which holds the error or response, which will be expressed as an ActionScript Object.AMF was introduced with Flash Player 6, and this version is referred to as AMF 0. It was unchanged until the release of Flash Player 9 and ActionScript 3.0, when new data types and language features prompted an update, called AMF 3. Adobe Systems published the AMF binary data protocol specification on December 13, 2007 and announced that it will support the developer community to make this protocol available for every major server platform.

Real Time Messaging Protocol (RTMP) is a proprietary protocol developed by Adobe Systems for streaming audio, video and data over the Internet, between a Flash player and a server.

The RTMP protocol has three variations:

1. The "plain" protocol which works on top of TCP and uses port number 1935
2. RTMPT which is encapsulated within HTTP requests to traverse firewalls
3. RTMPS which works just like RTMPT, but over a secure HTTPS connection.

While the primary motivation for RTMP was a persistent protocol for Flash, it is also used in some other applications, such as the Adobe LiveCycle Data Services ES.

Flex 3 features

The Flex 3 release is divided into four major themes: designer/developer workflow, working with data, Adobe AIR applications, and platform evolution. Let's quickly review some of the highlights:

• Native support for Adobe AIR – Flex 3 introduces new components and incorporates the Adobe AIR development tools into the SDK and Flex Builder.
• Persistent framework caching – You can make Flex 3 applications as small as 50K when leveraging the new Flash Player cache for Adobe platform components.
• Flex Builder productivity enhancements – Flex Builder 3 introduces refactoring support, new profilers for performance and memory tuning, and code generation tools for data access.
• Integration with Creative Suite 3 – The Flex Component Kit for Flash CS3 allows Flash CS3 users to build components that can be seamlessly integrated into a Flex application, while Flex Builder 3 adds new wizards for importing assets from CS3 applications as skins.
• Advanced DataGrid – The Advanced DataGrid is a new component that adds commonly requested features to the DataGrid such as support for hierarchical data, and basic pivot table functionality.
• First steps toward open source Flex. As a first step toward making Flex an open source project, we've opened up the Flex and Flex Builder bug tracking system to the public, as well as published detailed roadmap information.