We spent a lot of time organizing and reorganizing the content of this book. Although there is likely no one way to present the content that will seem perfect to all readers, we’ve done our best to present it in an order that we feel makes sense:
- Chapter 1, Introducing Flex
What is Flex? What are rich Internet applications (RIAs)? This chapter answers these questions, providing a context for the rest of the book.
- Chapter 2, Building Applications with the Flex Framework
In this chapter, we discuss the various elements and steps involved in building a Flex application. Topics include using the compilers, building scripts, and more.
- Chapter 3, MXML
MXML is the declarative language used by Flex. In this chapter, you’ll learn the basics of MXML.
- Chapter 4, ActionScript
ActionScript is the object-oriented programming language used by Flex. In this chapter, you’ll learn the basics of ActionScript 3.0.
- Chapter 5, Framework Fundamentals
Flex vastly simplifies many aspects of building applications. Although you don’t often have to look under the hood, understanding the fundamentals of how the framework works is useful. In this chapter, you’ll learn about Flex application life cycles, bootstrapping, and more.
- Chapter 6, Managing Layout
Flex provides many layout containers that allow you to quickly and easily create all sorts of layouts within your applications. This chapter explains how to work with those containers.
- Chapter 7, Working with UI Components
In this chapter, you’ll learn about the user interface components (buttons, lists, menus, etc.) that are part of the Flex framework.
- Chapter 8, Customizing Application Appearance
Customizing the appearance of Flex applications is important because it allows you to create applications that adhere to a corporate style guide or to a creative vision. This chapter explains how to change the appearance of Flex applications.
- Chapter 9, Application Components
To make Flex application development manageable it’s important to know how to break up the application into discrete parts. This chapter discusses strategies for this.
- Chapter 10, Framework Utilities and Advanced Component Concepts
Once you’ve learned the basics of working with components, you’ll likely want to know how to expand on that knowledge. In this chapter, you’ll learn about such topics as tool tips, customizing lists, pop-up windows, and more.
- Chapter 11, Working with Media
Flex allows you to include all sorts of assets and media in your applications, from images to animations to video and audio. In this chapter, you’ll learn how to work with these elements.
- Chapter 12, Managing State
Flex applications and components within those applications can change from one view to another. Flex refers to these changes as states. Sometimes managing state is as simple as adding a new component to a form, and other times it involves changing the entire contents of the screen. How to manage state is the subject of this chapter.
- Chapter 13, Using Effects and Transitions
For animated changes between states or in response to user events or system events, Flex includes features called transitions and effects. You will learn about transitions and effects in this chapter.
- Chapter 14, Working with Data
In this chapter, you’ll learn how to model data in Flex applications as well as how to link components so that they automatically update when data values change.
- Chapter 15, Validating and Formatting Data
In this chapter, you’ll learn how to validate user input and how to format data such as numbers, phone numbers, and so on.
- Chapter 16, Client Data Communication
Client data communication is any transfer of data into or out of Flash Player where the data remains on the client computer. Examples of this are communication between two or more Flex applications running on the same computer, and storing persistent data on the computer. These topics are discussed in this chapter.
- Chapter 17, Remote Data Communication
In this chapter, you’ll learn how to communicate from a Flex application running on a client computer to a remote data service. In the process, you’ll learn how to use XML, SOAP, AMF, and more.
- Chapter 18, Application Debugging
Debugging applications is just as important as writing them. It’s unusual to build an application that has no errors, and therefore it’s crucial that you be able to track down those errors efficiently. In this chapter, you’ll learn how to work with the debugging features of Flex.
- Chapter 19, Building Custom Components
Custom components are an important part of Flex applications because they allow you to create elements that can be used, customized, and distributed. This chapter discusses the steps necessary to create custom components using the Flex framework.
- Chapter 20, Embedding Flex Applications in a Web Browser
Many (if not most) Flex applications are deployed on the Web. That requires embedding Flex applications in web browsers. In this chapter, we talk about strategies for achieving this, as well as how to integrate Flex applications with browsers for back and forward button functionality and deep linking features.
- Chapter 21, Building AIR Applications
In this chapter, you’ll learn how to use Flex to build desktop applications that run on the Adobe AIR runtime environment. This allows you to use your Flex skills to build applications that also have access to desktop-only features such as the local filesystem and system-level drag-and-drop.
- Chapter 22, Building a Flex Application
This chapter looks at the challenge of building a complete and working Flex application. In this chapter, you’ll get a chance to examine different architectural challenges and possible solutions.
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