The Essential Guide to Flex 3

Product Description

Flex 3 is the next generation of a technology that revolutionized web applications. It is the next evolutionary step of Flash, which has grown from a web animation medium to a powerful enterprise web design and development platform. With nearly 98% of all web browsers, and a growing number of mobile devices, running Flash Player, a knowledge of Flex is indispensible for any serious web developer.

This book will show you how to create powerful Rich Internet Applications using Flex 3. After learning how to install and becoming familiar with the basics of the Flex Builder 3 software, you will explore in depth how the Flash scripting language, ActionScript 3.0, interacts with Flex's powerful XML-like design language: MXML.

You'll learn how to construct your applications using layout and navigation containers, and how to move between various states using transitions. There is coverage of how best to plan your applications and use the Model-View-Controller pattern to keep various aspects of development separated and ease creation of potentially complicated projects.

Rich Internet Applications rely on data, and this book shows how to bring data from various sources into your Flex application and check its integrity, and how best to display and interact with it.

Going farther, applications built for the Flash platform can now exist and function beyond the traditional confines of the web browser. Adobe AIR allows you to take your applications to the desktop, and this book shows how to reapply your Flex skills to take advantage of this new environment.

The Essential Guide to Flex 3 takes you through all the powerful features of Flex using a series of stand-alone, practical exercises. The skills acquired throughout the book are then brought together in the form of a full-featured case study application showcasing essential techniques that can easily be applied to your own Flex applications.

In this book you'll

* Learn how to create powerful applications using Adobe Flex 3
* Use Flex Builder to design layouts using Flex MXML containers, and see how to combine MXML and ActionScript 3.0
* Work your way through a full-featured case study, building a complete Flex application
* Connect Flex to the ColdFusion application server, creating Flex applications powered by dynamic server-side code
* Take your web applications to the desktop using Adobe AIR

Summary of Contents

* Chapter 1: Flex Basics
* Chapter 2: Flex and Flex Builder 3
* Chapter 3: ActionScript
* Chapter 4: Containers
* Chapter 5: Events and Components
* Chapter 6: Flex and XML
* Chapter 7: Formatting and Cascading Style Sheets
* Chapter 8: The Repeater Component
* Chapter 9: Drag and Drop
* Chapter 10: Case Study: Part 1
* Chapter 11: Case Study: Part 2
* Chapter 12: Flex and Data
* Chapter 13: Printing
* Chapter 14: Charting
* Chapter 15: Adobe Integrated Runtime (AIR)

Product Details

* Amazon Sales Rank: #234608 in Books
* Published on: 2008-05-26
* Original language: English
* Number of items: 1
* Binding: Paperback
* 600 pages

Editorial Reviews

About the Author
Charles is one of the most noted author, consultant, and trainers in the industry today. His books about Dreamweaver and Fireworks have received critical acclaim and used worldwide as teaching tools.

In addition to his work in the IT industry, Charles is also a noted concert pianist, organist, and guitarist appearing in major concert centers world-wide. He began his musical studies at age 4 and went on to study with famed pianist Vladimir Horowitz. At age 14 he made his debut with Leonard Bernstein and went on to study at the famed Juilliard School. Eventually he went to Paris to study with the 20th century legend, Igor Stravinsky. While working with Stravinsky, Charles developed a close friendship with one of the most powerful artistic forces of the 20th century: Pablo Picasso. What he learned about creativity from Picasso he uses today in his writings and training work.

Charles is a certified Macromedia/Adobe trainer who is in heavy demand worldwide. He frequently speaks at major conferences such as MAX and NAB. You can see his blog at blog.charlesebrown.net and his website can be found at www.charlesebrown.net.
Customer Reviews

Totally worth the money.5
I totally loved this Flex book. I've read almost all the books on Flex and this is definitely one book that is worth your money. Even if you are a total beginner to Flex, it provides really useful information about the soft and it even takes you trough the installation process ( step by step ) and the examples are just great.

Great book, worth every penny.

Great Book5
I have this book and got it after taking a Flex Class that Charles Brown taught. I have referred to the book numerous times to point me in the right direction for the application I am working on and also to help me better understand why something works the way it does.

Absolutely perfect (almost)5
This is one of the most well-written books I have ever read. I have been programming JavaScript for several years, so I assume that makes learning ActionScript fairly easy for me. Nevertheless, this is a good introductory book to Flex 3. All of the examples work flawlessly. The only thing wrong with the book are some unbelievably huge typographical errors, but they are easy to spot and easy to decipher. Sometimes you have to look at the example code from the website to get the correct text. The errors have not caused me any problems and I would highly recommend this book to anyone new to Flex 3.