Datasheet

Chapter 1: Understanding Rich Internet Applications

Adobe Integrated Runtime

In 2007, Adobe released Adobe Integrated Runtime (AIR). AIR allows developers to leverage exist-

ing skills and technologies to develop desktop applications. While it is possible to use a variety of

languages to develop AIR applications, even including HTML and CSS, most AIR development is

done with tools in the Flash platform.

Similar to Flash Player, AIR applications run within a virtual machine, thus they are not subject to

operating system variations. Therefore, a developer using a Macintosh computer can create an AIR

application and rest assured that it will work precisely the same way on a friend’s Windows-based

machine (so long as that user has AIR installed). If not, AIR can quickly be download and installed

from Adobe’s Web site for free. While the focus of this book is on developing Web applications,

AIR development is covered in later sections.

Flash Professional CS5

Flash Professional has long been the primary design tool in the Flash platform. Originally, it was

simply Flash. When version 6 (known as MX) was released, Macromedia began marketing both a

Standard and Professional version. Two releases later, the Standard version was dropped, but the

program has since maintained the Professional moniker.

Flash Professional is a full-featured, vector-based design tool. It includes a powerful set of drawing

tools, as well as a timeline to create animation. Designers can import assets from other applica-

tions, including images from Adobe Photoshop or other imaging software and vector drawings

from Adobe Illustrator, and then use these assets to create rich interactive environments. As of ver-

sion 7, designers can also import video into Flash movies. In fact, over the last few years Flash

video has become the de facto format for delivering video on the Web.

The Flex framework

As the idea of Rich Internet Applications began to take hold, Macromedia realized that Flash

Professional had a problem. It was built around the idea of creating animation, not complete Web

sites. While Macromedia briefly flirted with the idea of turning Flash Professional into a more

developer- and code-centric tool, doing so would require sacrificing that core designer market for

Flash. Therefore, Macromedia instead developed a new tool set for creating Rich Internet

Applications, which would become known as Flex.

Flex is in many ways nothing more than an alternate way to create Flash content. Using Flash

Professional, you can draw assets and animate them on a timeline. While coding support exists in

Flash Professional, it is somewhat limited and no method exists to completely describe a site’s

assets in code. Flex, on the other hand, is entirely code-based. Flex applications are created using a

combination of two languages. Visual assets are built using MXML, an XML-based markup lan-

guage developed specifically for Flex. (MXML does not actually stand for anything.) Interactions,

server data retrieval, and other dynamic aspects of a Flex application are built using ActionScript.

The Flex framework is open source, so anyone can download the Software Development Kit (SDK)

from

http://opensource.adobe.com and develop Flex applications for free. Anyone can

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