Relations and differences between flex, Flash, as3, and Air

This article describes in detail the relationships and differences between flash, flex, as3, and air. Hope to help beginners.

As3

Generally, as is the language of the Flash Platform. AsProgramAnd can be compiled into SWF and SWC. SWF is what we often call Flash animation. However, SwF is not just an animation, but a carrier of RIA. There are three versions of ActionScript: Version 1.0 (AS1), version 2.0 (as2), and version 3.0 (as3 ). Only Flash Player 9 and later support SWF compiled by as3. The three versions differ greatly, and the most popular version is as3.

Flash

Flash is a creation tool used to generate SWF files. It is easier to make animations. You can write as3 In the FLA file.CodeYou can also write as3 code outside Fla.

Flash has a built-in as3 compiler, so you can use flash to compile as3 code to generate a SWF file.

Flash Player

Flash Player must be installed when SWF animation is displayed on a webpage. Flash Player 9 is the lowest version that supports as3 (in fact, there is also a Flash Player 8.5, but it is upgraded to 9 without popularization), and The Flash Player later can support as3.

Air

The powerful Flash Player is also running in the browser and restricted by the browser. In order to get rid of the browser, Adobe released air. Air is actually a runtime. You can understand it as JVM. With air, you can use as3 to develop desktop software, and the developed software can run across platforms (this is exactly the same as a Java compilation and can run anywhere ). Currently, AIR applications in China are mainly concentrated on website clients, such as Sina Weibo air clients.

Flex

Flex is an efficient and free open-source framework that can be used to build expressive Web applications using Adobe Flash Player and Adobe AIR, consistent deployment across browsers, desktops, and operating systems during runtime. Although flex applications can only be built using the flex framework, Adobe Flash Builder (formerly known as Adobe Flex builder) the software can be accelerated through functions such as intelligent coding, interactive traversal debugging, and Visual Design User Interface layout.

Flash is mainly for designers, while Flex is for programmers. Flash can fully implement flex functions. The advantage of Flex is that it has its own framework, which already has many powerful components. Flash can be used in flex, but not vice versa, generally, Flash is suitable for animation and some irregular components, while Flex is more suitable for enterprise-level applications with some rules. Of course, flash can also be embedded for someCommunityAnd game applications.

Flexsdk

Flexsdk is a platform software used to compile the flex program. The flex SDK is equivalent to a library. After installation, you can write code in notepad and compile your program using the DOS command line.

Flexbuilder

Flash can be regarded as the creation environment, while flexbuilder is the development environment (IDE). We often say that flex refers to the flexbuilder development environment, which targets programmers, because it has ready-made UI components, these UI components are all based on as3 encapsulation, we can use flexbuilder to quickly and efficiently create our own Ria program. The flex builder contains the flex SDK.

Flashbuilder

Flashbuilder is an upgraded version of flexbuilder. Its name is flashbuilder when flexbuilder is upgraded to version 4. The flashbuilder has more components with better looks and functions, which is very suitable for development.