The Essential Guide to Flex 3 (Essential Guide)
| 2008-05-26 00:00:00 | | 0 | Adobe
Flex 3 is the next generation of a technology that revolutionized web applications. It is the next evolutionary step of Flash, which has grown from a web animation medium to a powerful enterprise web design and development platform. With nearly 98% of all web browsers, and a growing number of mobile devices, running Flash Player, a knowledge of Flex is indispensible for any serious web developer.
This book will show you how to create powerful Rich Internet Applications using Flex 3. After learning how to install and becoming familiar with the basics of the Flex Builder 3 software, you will explore in depth how the Flash scripting language, ActionScript 3.0, interacts with Flex's powerful XML-like design language: MXML.
You'll learn how to construct your applications using layout and navigation containers, and how to move between various states using transitions. There is coverage of how best to plan your applications and use the Model-View-Controller pattern to keep various aspects of development separated and ease creation of potentially complicated projects.
Rich Internet Applications rely on data, and this book shows how to bring data from various sources into your Flex application and check its integrity, and how best to display and interact with it.
Going farther, applications built for the Flash platform can now exist and function beyond the traditional confines of the web browser. Adobe AIR allows you to take your applications to the desktop, and this book shows how to reapply your Flex skills to take advantage of this new environment.
The Essential Guide to Flex 3 takes you through all the powerful features of Flex using a series of stand-alone, practical exercises. The skills acquired throughout the book are then brought together in the form of a full-featured case study application showcasing essential techniques that can easily be applied to your own Flex applications.
In this book you'll Learn how to create powerful applications using Adobe Flex 3 Use Flex Builder to design layouts using Flex MXML containers, and see how to combine MXML and ActionScript 3.0 Work your way through a full-featured case study, building a complete Flex application Connect Flex to the ColdFusion application server, creating Flex applications powered by dynamic server-side code Take your web applications to the desktop using Adobe AIR Summary of Contents Chapter 1: Flex Basics Chapter 2: Flex and Flex Builder 3 Chapter 3: ActionScript Chapter 4: Containers Chapter 5: Events and Components Chapter 6: Flex and XML Chapter 7: Formatting and Cascading Style Sheets Chapter 8: The Repeater Component Chapter 9: Drag and Drop Chapter 10: Case Study: Part 1 Chapter 11: Case Study: Part 2 Chapter 12: Flex and Data Chapter 13: Printing Chapter 14: Charting Chapter 15: Adobe Integrated Runtime (AIR)
User review
Outstanding reference even for the beginner
I am a beginning Flex programmer with only a bit of experience using ActionScript 3.0 with Flash. I found this book to be very helpful with both clear examples and a logical way of introducing and explaining the material. And because I rarely read a technical book sequentially, I rely heavily on the table of contents and index to help me find what I need. Both of these resources are excellent in this book.
User review
Great place to start
This book is great for readers who know something about programming and who are new to Flex.
The pace is steady, the examples are apt, and all code is available for download. By the end of the book, a reader will be able to write useful applications from scratch with full benefit of the AIR desktop and Flash player for browser-neutral applications.
User review
Good book for a Flex beginner
I'm a Java Programmer and actually I found this book very useful to learn Flex 3.
Being a newbie to Flex, within a week I was able to get started on Action Script and Mxml.
If you're new to Flex, this IS the book. There are other advanced books, but for beginners this is a good book
that walks you through the installation process for Flex Builder, Action script/MXML programming with a case study.
Even though the book doesn't come with a CD, you can download just one zip file from their website, which has all the sample code.
Pros:
1. Explains well about the GUI components, Layouts and event handling/custom events.
2. Flex and Xml & Flex and Data and my favorite chapters that deal with Flex/XML interaction and connecting flex UI to a data source.
3. Even though, the chapter about AIR is short, it is kind of neat and covers the basic information for developing AIR applications with a Hello World.
Cons:
1. It would've been nice, if the book had some information on Flex and Web Services, by cutting short the printing chapter.
2. I was expecting some info about how sockets and security are handled. But had to google and find out about Flash player Security and creating TCP sockets.
Over all, I would recommend this to any one who is a beginner to Flex. This book can really give the reader a head start and lay a foundation for Flex Basics.
User review
The Best Way to Start Learning Flex 3
I am a desktop programmer entering the Web application developmnet world.
This book is a very good point to start, explaining how do learn Flex without attending a course.
Brown introduce de use of Flex step by step very clearly.
I have bought other good books I recommend reading in the following sequence :
Guide to Flex 3 (Charles Brown)
Adobe Flex for Dummies (Douge MCune)
Adobe Flex 3 Bible David Gassner
User review
Great Introduction to Flex 3
Flex 3 from Adobe is another development tool that creates RIA with the SWF file type. Flex is more of a development tool than Adobe Flash and it provides developer with an easy way of creating interactive web sites than Flash since they dont have to deal with the timeline.
This book is a great introduction to anybody who wants to learn Adobe Flex with either a background using Flash or any other development tool. You actually dont have to have any previous programming or development experience to use and understand this book, but it would probably enhance your learning experience.
The book has 15 chapters and is broken down into four main sections such as the Flex interface, ActionScript, Components and Case Study's.
The author, Charles Brown, does a very good job in getting the reader to explain the more involved topics such as XML, ActionScript and components and data interaction.
Using Flex can be a little intimidating for user who have not used an Adobe-based interface before, but the author shows everything step-by-step for the reader of any level. I have used Flash for some time and was a little confused about the Flex interface and after reading over certain chapters in this book, everything came clear. I wish other Adobe Flash books were written as good as this Flex book.
I especially like the two chapters on Case Studies that cover how to create a sample website (Publishers Website). Its important to have real-life scenarios when learning new technologies. The author really showed how useful Flex can be when reviewing the sample website in putting together what was covered throughout the book. I wish more books used this in properly explaining techniques.
More advanced techniques such as interacting with databases with flex are covered as well. This is a complete beginner to intermediate book on Adobe Flex 3. I highly recommend it.