ADC Presents - Take the Tour de Flex

From the Adobe Developer Connection

Tour de Flex is a desktop application for exploring Flex capabilities and resources, including the core Flex components, Adobe AIR, data integration, and a variety of third-party components, effects, skins, and more.

Tour de Flex, shown in Figure 1, includes over 200 running samples, each with source code, links to documentation, and other details. Topics include the Flex core components, Flex data access, AIR desktop capabilities, cloud APIs, data visualization, mapping, and a growing collection of custom components, effects, and skins.

Download Tour de Flex, a desktop application for exploring Flex capabilities and resources. You can also use the WEB VERSION

Flex In A Week

Introducing Flex In A Week - Day 1: Flex Components and Controls

From ADOBE TV | Flex Channel

In this episode of the Flex in a Week training series, you will learn about the UI components available in the Spark and MX libraries and the architectural difference between them.

Spark components

Spark components are new for Flex 4 and are defined in the spark.* packages. Components available in previous releases of Flex, referred to as MX components, are defined in the mx.* packages.

The main differences between Spark and MX components are how you use CSS styles with the components and how you skin them. For details on using visual components in an application, see Visual components.

Spark and MX containers

Flex defines two sets of containers: Spark containers and MX containers. Spark containers are defined in the spark.components package while MX containers are defined in the mx.core and mx.containers packages. Spark containers specify layout differently from MX containers.

While you can use MX containers to perform most of the same layout that you can perform using the Spark containers, Adobe recommends that you use the Spark containers when possible.

For details on using containers to layout an application, see Introduction to containers.

Spark containers

Applications in Flex typically consist of an MXML application file (a file with an <s:Application> container as the parent tag, and one or more components defined in separate MXML files, ActionScript files, or Flash component files (SWC files). You can insert containers and controls directly in the MXML application file, or you can insert them in separate MXML files to create custom components and then insert the custom components in the application file.

The following example shows a simple structure for an application. The containers and controls are inserted directly into the MXML application file.

Styling Flex 4 Components with Flash Builder 4 Video

Introducing Flex In A Week - Day 1: Understanding Namespaces

From ADOBE TV | Flex Channel

In this episode of the Flex in a Week training series, you will learn about the MXML application code and some Flex framework namespaces and the classes that are mapped to these libraries..

• Adobe Flash Platform * Packages and namespaces
• Adobe Flash Platform * Using XML namespaces
• Adobe Flex 4 * Components in multiple namespaces
• Adobe Flex 4 * Components in a single namespace

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• Flex & Flash Builder Help and Support
• Adobe Developer Connection
• ActionScript 3.0 Language and Components Reference
• Adobe Labs
• Adobe Flex Cookbook

Introducing Flex In A Week - Day 1: Compiling and Viewing The Application

From ADOBE TV | Flex Channel

In this episode of the Flex in a Week training series, you will learn how to run your Flex application from within Flash Builder and deal with common compiler and browser issues that you might encounter during development.

Compile Application Help

• Adobe Flex 4 * Compiling modules
• Adobe AIR * Compiling MXML and ActionScript source files for AIR
• Adobe Flex 4 * Compiling components in packages
• Adobe Flex 4 * Compiling for deployment
• Adobe Flex 4 * Compiling a Flex SDK application
• Adobe Flex 4 * Compiling programmatic skins for MX components
• Adobe Flex 4 * Compiling components with Flex SDK
• Adobe Flex 4 * Compiling stand-alone components and classes

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Additional Resources

• Flex & Flash Builder Help and Support
• Adobe Developer Connection
• ActionScript 3.0 Language and Components Reference
• Adobe Labs
• Adobe Flex Cookbook

Introducing Flex In A Week - Day 1: Using Flash Builder

From ADOBE TV | Flex Channel

In this episode of the Flex in a Week training series, you will learn about the proper terminology for using Flash Builder, and how to organize your application code into projects.

• Flex & Flash Builder Help and Support
• Adobe Developer Connection
• ActionScript 3.0 Language and Components Reference
• Adobe Labs
• Adobe Flex Cookbook

Introducing Flex In A Week - Day 1: Flash Builder and The Flash Player

From ADOBE TV | Flex Channel

In this episode of the Flex in a Week training series, you will learn about the Eclipse Foundation development platform and application framework on which Flash Builder is built. You will also get an overview of the installation and project folders for the tool, and learn about the differences between the Flash Player and the Flash Player Debugger version.

• Flex & Flash Builder Help and Support
• Adobe Developer Connection
• ActionScript 3.0 Language and Components Reference
• Adobe Labs
• Adobe Flex Cookbook

Introducing Flex In A Week - Day 1: Incorporate Flex Into The Client/Server World

From ADOBE TV | Flex Channel

In this episode of the Flex in a Week training series, you will review the basic workflow of an HTML-based data-driven application, how a SWF file changes this workflow, and how SWF files can access data from server-side technologies.

• Flex & Flash Builder Help and Support
• Adobe Developer Connection
• ActionScript 3.0 Language and Components Reference
• Adobe Labs
• Adobe Flex Cookbook

Introducing Flex In A Week - Day 1: Flash Platform

From ADOBE TV | Flex Channel

In this episode of the Flex in a Week training series, you will learn which technologies make up the Adobe Flash Platform.

Resources

• Flex & Flash Builder Help and Support
• Adobe Developer Connection
• ActionScript 3.0 Language and Components Reference
• Adobe Labs
• Adobe Flex Cookbook

Flex In A Week - Day 1: Flex Basics (From ADOBE TV)

From ADOBE TV | Flex Channel

Resources

• Flex & Flash Builder Help and Support
• Adobe Developer Connection
• ActionScript 3.0 Language and Components Reference
• Adobe Labs
• Adobe Flex Cookbook