Getting Started with Flex 3 (Adobe Developer Library Series)

by Jack D. Herrington, Emily Kim, Adobe Development Team (Compiler)

Overview

Discover how easy RIA development can be with this one-of-a-kind handbook from the Adobe Developer Library. Several clear, step-by-step mini-tutorials teach you about web services, event handling, designing user interfaces with reusable components, and more. After finishing this guide, you'll be able to build Flash applications ranging from widgets to full-featured RIAs using the Flex SDK and Flex Builder 3.0. With Getting Started with Flex 3, you will:

• Walk through sample RIA projects and see examples of amazing applications people have built with Flex
• Work with ActionScript 3.0 and the MXML markup language
• Build user interfaces using the controls and tools available with the framework
• Get a tour of controls available commercially and through open source
• Learn how Flex integrates with ASP.NET, ColdFusion, PHP, and J2EE in the server
• Build Flex-based widgets that let you display real-time data
• Use advanced controls to build 3D graphs, data dashboards, mapping applications, and more

You'll find complete code for video players, a slideshow, a chat client, and an RSS reader, just to name a few. You also get plenty of tips, tricks, and techniques to leverage your existing programming skills, whether you come from an open source or Visual Studio-intensive background.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780596520649
Publisher:	O'Reilly Media, Incorporated
Publication date:	06/01/2008
Series:	Pocket Reference (O'Reilly)
Pages:	148
Product dimensions:	4.20(w) x 6.90(h) x 0.60(d)

About the Author

Jack D. Herrington is an engineer, author and presenter who lives and works in the Bay Area. His mission is to expose his fellow engineers to new technologies. That covers a broad spectrum, from demonstrating programs that write other programs in the book Code Generation in Action. Providing techniques for building customer centered web sites in PHP Hacks. All the way writing a how-to on audio blogging called Podcasting Hacks. All of which make great holiday gifts and are available online here, and at your local bookstore. Jack also writes articles for O'Reilly, DevX and IBM Developerworks.

Emily Kim, President, Trilemtry, Inc., has co-authored and contributed to a number of books including a college-level workbook about the Internet and various ColdFusion books. Besides being a writer, Emily is also a programmer, designer and a Abobe Master Instructor.

The Adobe Development Team consists of engineers and product evangelists, combining their deep technical knowledge of the technology with communication skills honed from demoing the product hundreds of times, to many thousands of users (and doing countless hours of Q&A with these users).

Table of Contents

Preface; Who Should Read This Book; How This Book Is Organized; Conventions Used in This Book; How to Contact Us; About the Author; Acknowledgments and Dedication; Publisher’s Acknowledgments; Chapter 1: Installing Flex Builder 3; 1.1 Installing the IDE; 1.2 Having Some Image Fun; Chapter 2: Flex in Action; 2.1 E-Commerce; 2.2 Online Applications; 2.3 Multimedia; 2.4 Plug-ins and Widgets; 2.5 Dashboards; 2.6 Desktop Applications; 2.7 What Will You Do?; Chapter 3: Flex 101: Step by Step; 3.1 A Flickr Viewer; Chapter 4: Flex Controls and Layout; 4.1 The Application Container; 4.2 The Box Class; 4.3 The Canvas Container (Absolute Positioning); 4.4 The Canvas Container (Relative Positioning); 4.5 The Form Container; 4.6 Combined Layouts; 4.7 The Panel Container; 4.8 Controls; 4.9 Data Grids; 4.10 Tabs and Accordions; 4.11 Menus; 4.12 Divider Boxes; 4.13 CSS; 4.14 Filters and Effects; Chapter 5: Working with the Server; 5.1 POSTing to the Server with Flex; 5.2 Using the HTTPService Tag; 5.3 Going on from Here; Chapter 6: More Flex Applications; 6.1 A Runner’s Calculator; 6.2 A Simple Image Viewer; 6.3 Drag-and-Drop; 6.4 States and Transitions; 6.5 Creating Better Movies; Chapter 7: Advanced Flex Controls; 7.1 ILOG Elixir; 7.2 Advanced Flash Components; 7.3 The FlexLib Project; 7.4 Distortion Effects; 7.5 SpringGraph; Chapter 8: Flex for Widgets; 8.1 Slide Show Widget; 8.2 Chat Widget; Chapter 9: Flex on AIR; 9.1 Creating an AIR Version of the Runner’s Calculator; Chapter 10: Resources for Flex Developers; 10.1 Flex Websites; 10.2 Blogs and Sites; 10.3 The Flex Cookbook; 10.4 Community Resources; 10.5 Books;