Specifications

315ADOBE FLEX 3

Building and Deploying Adobe Flex 3 Applications

Creating a simple wrapper

You can write your own wrapper for your SWF files rather than use the wrappers generated by Flex Builder or the

Flex module for Apache and IIS. Your own wrapper can be simple HTML, or it can be a JavaServer Page (JSP), a

PHP page, an Active Server Page (ASP), or anything that can return HTML that is rendered in your client’s

browser. Typically, you integrate wrapper logic into your website’s own HTML templates.

This section describes how to write the simplest wrapper possible to get your Flex application running on a web

server. It does not include features such as deep linking and Express Install. These features improve the user

experience and should be omitted only after careful consideration. Instructions for adding these features, which

can make creating a wrapper more complex, are described in later sections.

A basic wrapper consists of the following files:

• HTML page This is the file that the client browser requests. It typically defines two possible experiences

(one for users with JavaScript enabled and one for users without JavaScript enabled). This page also references a

separate JavaScript file. In the provided HTML templates, a basic version of this page is included at /templates/no-

player-detection/index.template.html.

• JavaScript file The JavaScript file referenced by the <script> tag in the HTML page includes the

following:

• <object> tag This tag embeds the SWF file for Internet Explorer.

• <embed> tag This tag embeds the SWF file for Netscape-based browsers.

In the provided HTML templates, the JavaScript file is named AC_OETags.js. This JavaScript file contains

a great deal of logic that is unnecessary for a basic wrapper, so you will probably want to write your own

when developing a basic wrapper.

The client first requests the HTML page. If the user’s browser has JavaScript enabled, the HTML page then refer-

ences the JavaScript file. The JavaScript file embeds the Flex application’s SWF file.

To make your Flex application respond immediately without user interaction, use a

JavaScript file that contains the

directly in the HTML file. Controls that are directly loaded by the embedding page require activation before they

will run in Microsoft Internet Explorer 6 or later. If you load the controls directly in the HTML page, users will be

required to activate those controls before they can use them by clicking on the control or giving it focus. This is

undesirable because you want your Flex application to run immediately when the page loads, not after the user

interacts with the control.

If the client disabled JavaScript in their browser, you typically embed the Flex application directly in the

experience.