Flex has revolutionized the development of rich Internet applications, giving developers the framework necessary to easily create ever more powerful applications. Components form an essential part of this framework, and once you understand how to fully use them, your productivity and creativity will be taken to a whole new level. Flex 3 Component Solutions will show just what you can achieve with components and exactly how to achieve it. You'll see just how simple it is to use components to create amazing interfaces for your applications be they media players, data visualizations, 3D graphics—the list is long. Finally, there'll be times when you'll want to or have no alternative but to create your own components. This book will show you how to do this for your own ends, or so you can contribute to the Flex component community by distributing them. Flex 3 Component Solutions is a tour de force of components, and all of these components are demonstrated using real-world Flex code that you can use as starting points for your own applications. Take what you learn for this book, and then go out and create your own amazing interfaces quickly and easily: reuse, re-purpose, redesign, and do it all faster and with greater quality control than you ever thought possible.

Flex has revolutionized the development of rich Internet applications, giving developers the framework necessary to easily create ever more powerful applications. Components form an essential part of this framework, and once you understand how to fully use them, your productivity and creativity will be taken to a whole new level. Flex 3 Component Solutions will show just what you can achieve with components and exactly how to achieve it. You'll see just how simple it is to use components to create amazing interfaces for your applications be they media players, data visualizations, 3D graphics—the list is long. Finally, there'll be times when you'll want to or have no alternative but to create your own components. This book will show you how to do this for your own ends, or so you can contribute to the Flex component community by distributing them. Flex 3 Component Solutions is a tour de force of components, and all of these components are demonstrated using real-world Flex code that you can use as starting points for your own applications. Take what you learn for this book, and then go out and create your own amazing interfaces quickly and easily: reuse, re-purpose, redesign, and do it all faster and with greater quality control than you ever thought possible.

Evaluating any new technology can be a challenge. This Short Cut is designed to help web application developers (and their team managers) understand if Flex is the right technology for their company or client. Although the authors of this book have a strong understanding of the Flex framework, this isn't a sales pitch for Flex. The authors believe that Flex is a good tool to solve many business problems, but it is not a cure-all. After reading this material, you'll know what's good about Rich Internet Applications. You'll know the capabilities of Flex 3, how Flex works, and how much it costs. We'll tell you about the challenges you'll face in developing with Flex, and show you the steps you'll take to create and deploy a Flex 3 application.

Discover how easy RIA development can be with this one-of-a-kind handbook from the Adobe Developer Library. Several clear, step-by-step mini-tutorials teach you about web services, event handling, designing user interfaces with reusable components, and more. After finishing this guide, you'll be able to build Flash applications ranging from widgets to full-featured RIAs using the Flex SDK and Flex Builder 3.0. With Getting Started with Flex 3, you will: Walk through sample RIA projects and see examples of amazing applications people have built with Flex Work with ActionScript 3.0 and the MXML markup language Build user interfaces using the controls and tools available with the framework Get a tour of controls available commercially and through open source Learn how Flex integrates with ASP.NET, ColdFusion, PHP, and J2EE in the server Build Flex-based widgets that let you display real-time data Use advanced controls to build 3D graphs, data dashboards, mapping applications, and more You'll find complete code for video players, a slideshow, a chat client, and an RSS reader, just to name a few. You also get plenty of tips, tricks, and techniques to leverage your existing programming skills, whether you come from an open source or Visual Studio-intensive background.

With Professional Adobe Flex 3, put your prior experience with Flash, ActionScript and XML-based languages to good use and learn how to use the Flex 3 platform to create Rich Internet Applications and AIR applications. Understand the potential of the Flex 3 platform through practical examples and hands-on advice on topics like desktop deployment, developing applications in MXML, creating custom flex components, charting, targeting AIR, and data interconnectivity.

The best way to showcase a powerful new technology is to demonstrate its real-world results, and that's exactly what this new Cookbook does with Adobe Flex 3. Wide ranging and highly practical, Flex 3 Cookbook contains more than 300 proven recipes for developing interactive Rich Internet Applications and Web 2.0 sites. You'll find everything from Flex basics, to solutions for working with visual components and data access, to tips on application development, unit testing, and using Adobe AIR. You also get ideas from the development community. Through its Flex Cookbook website (www.adobe.com/devnet/), Adobe invited Flex developers to post their own solutions for working with this technology, and from hundreds of posts, the authors chose the best and most useful solutions to supplement Flex 3 Cookbook. Each recipe inside provides a solution to a common problem, explains how and why it works, and offers sample code that you can put to use immediately. Topics include: Containers and dialogues Working with Text Data driven components DataGrid and Advanced DataGrid ItemRenderers and Editors Images, bitmaps, videos, and sounds CSS, styling, and skinning States and effects Working with Collections, arrays, and DataProviders Using DataBinding Validation, formatting, and regular expressions Using Charts and data visualization Services and Data Access Using RSLs and Modules Working with Adobe AIR Whether you're a committed Flex developer or still evaluating the technology, you'll discover how to get quick results with Flex 3 using the recipes in this Cookbook. It's an ideal way to jumpstart your next web application.

Essential Skills--Made Easy! Learn to program with Flex 3, the powerful tool for building multimedia-rich, interactive Flash applications for the Web. Flex 3: A Beginner's Guide is an easy-to-follow, fast-paced tutorial that allows you to fully grasp the fundamentals, including MXML, ActionScript, Flex Builder, states, transitions, and behaviors. You'll learn how to customize your applications with styles, skins, and themes; access remote data using the XML HTTP Service Request; profile and debug your applications; and manage media assets. Designed for Easy Learning Key Skills & Concepts--Chapter-opening lists of specific skills covered in the chapter Ask the Experts--Q&A sections filled with bonus information and helpful tips Try This--Short, hands-on exercises to practice your skills Notes--Bonus information related to the topic being covered Tips--Helpful reminders or alternate ways of doing things Cautions--Errors and pitfalls to avoid Annotated Syntax--Example code with commentary that describes the programming techniques being illustrated