Why Rich Internet Application Development With Flex?

By Author: Harry Barter
Total Articles: 21
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Ajax and Flash have hugely contributed to the rich internet application development industry in fact initially only they were used for rich internet application development. Flex is a small adaption of the former and is often considered to be a Flash framework to facilitate rich internet application development.

Rich internet applications are dominating the world of web applications and can be best developed using cutting edge technology like Flash or Ajax. If you ask a developer which platform they would prefer then most of them would reply Ajax is the best, reason it is the best UI tool and Flash is more known as a multi media tool. But Ajax is not spared from limitations which is it lacks cross browser compatibility. Also reach of Ajax is limited to very few computers as compared to Flash.

With the increasing popularity of rich internet application development increased the demand for a framework which can ease the process of rich internet application development. Of course many frameworks were introduced ...
... but all were JavaScript based and only one was based on Flash. Today we know the framework as Flex which makes use of Action Script and tags.

Flex framework used for rich internet application development is known as Flex SDK and is defined as an integration of various technologies introduced by Adobe Systems for the development and deployment of Adobe Flash based RIA solutions. This means that the essence of a Flex framework is that it is a set of tools to be used for developing cross platform compatible rich internet applications.

Here is what helps Flex framework fulfill the essence of its existence in rich internet application development:

Cross platform: Rich internet application development done using Flex is compatible with all the different types of browsers and desktops which have Flash in them.

Rich Internet applications: Flex is the best option for rich internet application development as it limits the problems associated with RIA solutions.

Technologies Combined: Flex framework used in any rich internet application development project is a combination of various technologies. For example MXML is used for defining layout and UI MXML is based on XML, similarly ActionScript is used for interaction implementation and ActionScript is based on JavaScript or ECMAScript for interaction implementation.

UI Components: They help in the perfect transition of UI interfaces to the web applications. There are two main types of UI components namely controls and containers. Containers include controls like combo boxes, textboxes etc in them and also provide layouts. Action Script can be used to manage controls in the rich internet application development projects.

Charting Components: Data represented through chart is easy to interpret. Charting components as found in Flex allow the Flex developer to chart data including pie, bar and line charts. Charts can also be made dynamic and attractive by adding effects like roll over and drill down.

Utility and Web Services: It allows a Flex developer to access and display data fetched from Web service. APIs in Flex help implement animation, drag and drop, form validation, effects and application state management. A developer can use them without gaining knowledge of any third party API as these APIs are at the base of Flex and are highly useful for rich internet application development.

iFlexweb is among the pioneers to use Flex for rich internet application development. Each new project is considered unique here and efforts are made to ensure that it looks equally unique.