To create a flex component

Rich Internet Applications (RIA) are working to introduce the interoperability, responsiveness and robustness of traditional desktop applications into web-based applications. RIA is particularly important for developers who want to leverage business intelligence (BI) and Web 2.0 technologies. Adobe Flex is a pioneer in the use of RIA based solutions. As a relatively new but rapidly evolving technology, Flex® uses Adobe®flash Player's capabilities to provide highly responsive, excellent image representations. Flex comes with a lot of useful, robust components, but there are some difficulties when you need to use the features that flex doesn't provide and create specific features. This entry-level article delves into the Flex rendering engine (rendering engine) and describes the steps needed to integrate flex components into your RIA, while also explaining the knowledge you must know to build new flex functionality from scratch.

Introduction to Flex and RIA

The emergence of a new client-server model and the need for more complex uis require a richer and more responsive application design for web-based products. These new applications are often referred to as rich Internet applications (RIA), and their goal is to introduce many of the features and benefits of traditional desktop applications into Web applications. Adobe Flex is a cutting-edge tool to help you create an RIA that contains a wealth of charts, animations, 3D effects, and a more responsive user interface. These features are particularly important for the creation and delivery of business intelligence (BI) and Web 2.0 content in the infancy phase. Core WEB 2.0 requirements typically include asynchronous processing, request-response mode processing, and content aggregation, and so on, Flex can help you save time and effort to handle these things.

Flex comes with a lot of useful, robust components, but there are some difficulties when you need to use the features that flex doesn't provide and create specific features. This entry-level article delves into the flex rendering engine and describes the steps required to integrate flex components into your RIA, while also explaining the knowledge you must know to build new flex functionality from scratch. I will highlight Flex and its functions in particular. I will also reduce the similarity between the Flex and Java™ programming languages, and then discuss the Flex component's lifecycle from the perspective of the rendering engine. In this process, I'll delve into the details of extending and building the flex component, including a careful look at the Flex component lifecycle, and subtle details about the Flex component's submission, metrics, and layout. The Flex component automatically handles many things for you, but after you leave these pre-built components, you'll soon be overwhelmed. I'll parse the workings of some of the Flex components so that you know what to do when you need to provide these behaviors.

WEB development standards constantly changing

Flex and other competitive technologies, such as JavaFX, Ajax, and Silverlight, are the forerunners that lead today's Web development changes and have a huge impact on how users want to visualize data. Flex and its competitors are newer technologies and are trying to overcome issues such as cross-browser portability, security, and client-side caching limitations.

One of the most powerful opponents of Flex is Ajax. Some of their functions overlap, but the areas they apply are very different. Flex's expertise is a rich and complex graphics structure, while Ajax is mainly used for text-based content. Ajax is typically used in conjunction with HTML and transmits data in XML or JSON, and Flex supports not only XML and JSON data transfer, but even binary formatting. In terms of data transfer rates and compactness, support for binary data transmission allows Flex to be far ahead of Ajax.

The advantages of Flex

Flex offers a number of compelling advantages. Much of the advantage of Flex stems from its building on the widely used Adobe Flash Player. The main advantages of Flex include:

Full browser portability. Any browser that supports Flash Player (which covers most browsers) supports Flex and its scripting language ActionScript (AS). This contrasts with Ajax, which is influenced by incompatible JavaScript implemented in different browsers.

A consistent perception. Flash Player is known for providing consistent impressions of all operating systems and browsers. Flex uses the Flash Player engine, so it will also provide a consistent impression.