Flex is a product from Adobe that allows developers to create applications for Flash Player/Adobe AIR. It provides a rich visual development environment and allows applications to be developed as a complete flow rather than individual pages. Flex applications can easily manipulate data without being tied to specific form or page elements. REST was chosen as the interface to work with M due to its simplicity and performance compared to other options like Web services or AMF. The cloud aspect means the data storage location does not impact the user experience as the interface remains the same.

1. Lightning in the Clouds Using Flex with M technology

2. What is Flex? Flex is a product from Adobe that allows developers to create applications for Flash Player/Adobe AIR Flash is a product from Adobe that allows designers to create applications for Flash Player/Adobe AIR Everything that can be done in Flash can be done in Flex, and vice versa. Flex is open source, Flex Builder is Adobe’s proprietary tool to develop with.

3. Why Flex? I was frustrated with the typical Web development/runtime environment Multiple technologies to learn, different behaviors on different browsers Performance issues with data intensive applications Stuck in the browser, and at the mercy of the browser publishers.

4. What’s different Flex develops a complete application, not a set of pages. Data can be easily be manipulated in Flex, without ‘attachment’ required to form or page elements. More logical, consistent flow through the application. Eliminates dreaded Back Button.

5. How to Use with M Web Services – Works, but overly complex and slow for most uses. REST – simple name/value pair / XML interface. This is what we chose. Easily implemented with the Weblink gateway, the CSP gateway, or the MGWSI gateway with a small PHP page if desired. AMF – Adobe specific data exchange format. We will explore this in the future, but we are experiencing good performance with REST and M.

6. How the cloud comes in With the simple REST interface, how the data is stored, and WHERE the data is stored becomes irrelevant. It is easy to change where the data is retrieved/returned to without any impact on the user.

7. Provides a very rich visual development environment, which can be overwhelming for us poor developer types. Close integration with other Adobe visual tools such as Photoshop, Dreamweaver, Illustrator, etc. Designers can create the assets and ‘look and feel’, developers focus on connecting the logic and database.

8. What’s coming Next version of Flex/Flash Player include very powerful 3d capabilities. Fully programmatic ‘skins’ Presentation view more fully separated from ‘logic’