Implement a Facebook album using the Flex SDK

Before you start

This tutorial is for WEB developers who want to create interactive Facebook applications using the free Adobe Flex SDK. Although not mandatory, it is useful to have a basic understanding of PHP, HTML, and WEB application development. Learning this tutorial does not require experience with FLEX development or Facebook development.

About this tutorial

This tutorial provides you with the basics of developing your Facebook application using the Adobe Flex SDK and the Facebook development platform. You will first learn about Adobe Flex concepts, especially MXML and ActionScript. It then introduces the Facebook application and the tools available to developers, such as FBML (Facebook Markup Language), FQL (Facebook Query Language), and the REST API. Next, we will install the Flex SDK to set up the development environment, and I will explain the structure of the Flex application and show how to create a Facebook application. We then create a basic Flex application that will lay the groundwork for the subsequent Facebook slide application.

Prerequisite

You will need the following tools to complete the study of this tutorial:

The latest stable version of the Flex 3 SDK.

A Facebook account for adding developer applications.

A WEB server with PHP 5 or later installed.

Facebook PHP Client Library.

Facebook ActionScript API. The latest version is V0.9.1.

Adobe Flash Player version 9 or later.

Introduction to Adobe Flex

I'll start with Adobe Flex and see the various options for developing flex applications, especially the free Adobe flex SDK. You will then view the techniques used to create Flex applications: MXML and ActionScript.

What is Flex?

Adobe Flex is a framework that allows you to create powerful Flash applications using traditional application development techniques. Flex contains a wealth of component libraries that allow you to easily create an excellent rich Internet application (RIA). These applications can be developed using an open source Flex SDK and a basic text editor such as Notepad. Adobe offers a commercial IDE, known as Flex Builder, built on the Eclipse platform. However, we use the free Flex SDK in this tutorial.

What is a Flex SDK?

The Flex SDK is an open source framework that uses a standards-based language that all developers can easily master to develop Flash applications. There are two forms of the flex SDK: The Open source Flex 3 SDK and the Adobe Flex 3 SDK. Both are available for free, but with different licenses. The Open source Flex 3 SDK contains all the content needed to develop a flex application and is licensed for use under Version 1.1 of Mozilla public License (MPL). The Adobe Flex 3 SDK contains all the content that the open Source Flex 3 SDK has, as well as some other components, such as the version of the debugger for Adobe AIR runtime and Adobe Flash Player. These additional components are licensed for use under the Adobe Flex SDK.

This tutorial only covers the open source Flex 3 SDK. No matter what version you choose to download, you can build the sample application.