Flex is a highly productive, free open source framework for building and maintaining expressive web applications that deploy consistently on all major browsers, desktops, and operating systems. While Flex applications can be built using only the free Flex SDK, developers can use Adobe® Flex® Builder™ 3 software to dramatically accelerate development.

1. ADOBE Flex 4 Peter Andreas Moelgaard

2. About Me Adobe Certified Professional (Flex)

3. About Me Adobe Community Professional (Flex)

4. About Me Adobe Advisory Board for Flash Builder Adobe Advisory Board for Flash Catalyst Adobe Advisory Board for Flex SDK

5. About Me I’m Peter Andreas Moelgaard I’m 35 years old I’m

6. About Me Adobe MAX Award x 2 (2008) Adobe MAX Award Semifinalist (2009) Author of Flash Catalyst 2.0 Unleashed(Addison Wesley, 2011)

7. Agenda Introduction to Flex First Things First - What Is Flex ? How Does Flex Work ? What Can You Do with Flex ? The Flex Ecosystem Build your First Application (Bootcamp) Build the User Interface Connect to Data Create Pages Code Your Interactions

8. About Me Twitter: @petermoelgaard Blog: blog.petermoelgaard.com

9. Introduction to Flex before we get our hands dirty…

10. Introduction to RIA’s Rich Internet Applications (RIA) are desktop-like applications running in the browser.Overcome many limitations of traditional web technologies: Stateless architecture User interaction is mostly point-and-click Non-responsive (click > load > wait > click > load > wait > ...)

11. Introduction to RIA’s Benefits Rich user experience, like desktop applications No cumbersome installations, or upgrades Single point management, leading to the concept of Software as a Service (SaaS)

12. Introduction to RIA’s Engaging, informative, self-service-oriented RIAs encourage customers to Stay on your site longer Explore more options Complete more online transactions Spend more money Recommend the site to others Return more often

13. Introduction to RIA’s Well-designed customer-facing RIAs can Increase online sales up to 30%* Increase conversions, cross-channel sales, and upsells by up to 40%* Reduce contact center / telephone agent calls up to 20% annually* * Forrester: “The Business Case for Rich Internet Applications”(Ron Rogowski, March 12, 2007)

14. Introduction to RIA’s “…even modest improvements in online customer experiences can boost revenue gains by $117 million to $311 million per year -- due to additional purchases, reluctance to switch, and likelihood of recommending to colleagues and friends.” Forrester “Customer Experience Boosts Revenue” by Bruce D. Temkin, June 22, 2009

15. First Things First - What Is Flex ? Flex is an open source software development toolkit for building Rich Internet Applications (RIAs) on the Flash Platform. To build a Flex application, you write object-oriented code using ActionScript 3, MXML and CSS languages. The Flex SDK includes a compiler, debugger, profiler and hundreds of ready-to-user components and ActionScript classes that accelerate development.

16. Adobe provides optimized Flash Player technology to Google Increases accuracy of web search results Enables top search engines to understand what's inside of RIAs Works with all existing SWF content, across all versions

17. First Things First - What Is Flex ? To help us rapidly develop applications and content using the Flex framework, Adobe offers an Eclipse based IDE. Adobe Flash BuilderIt includes support for intelligent coding,debugging, visual design as well aspowerful testing and monitoring tools. Alternative IDEsFDT, FlourineFX, FlashDevelop,Amethyst, FlexBean, etc.

18. How Does Flex Work ? Flex source code is first compiled into ActionScript classes and then eventually Flash bytecode, which is executed at the client side by the ActionScript Virtual Machine in Adobe Flash Player or Adobe AIR. Flash Flex ActionScript Flash Platform

19. What Can You Do With Flex ? You can use Flex to build anything from multimedia-rich consumer experiences to functional line-of-business applications that run behind the firewall. You can use Flex to deliver an entire application experience, or you can embed Flex-based components and widgets within existing HTML websites. You can use Adobe AIR to run an enhanced, standalone version of your application across Windows, MAC OS X, Linux and Android operating systems.

20. RIAs help businesses save money by enhancing employee productivity Used internally, RIAs can help the enterprise Unite key data from disparate sources Increase employee productivity Reduce data entry time up to 40% Improve accuracy Save time Reduce operating expenses

21. Common use cases for RIAs across various industries Customer self-service applications Intuitive, guided self-service applications lower costs, increase visibility and usage while increasing overall customer satisfaction Guided selling applications increase ASP and revenues, while reducing errors and returns driving down costs Data visualization Rich, interactive data visualization simplifies complex data and leads to faster decision making Dashboards enable real time pulse of critical business metrics

22. NASDAQ Enabling stock market participants to replay, understand, and explain market events at any point in time Challenge Manage and deliver trading data in relevant, interactive ways Give users instant insight into extremely detailed trading activity in the market at any time during the day Solution: Market Replay RIA Adobe AIR Adobe Flex Amazon S3 Results Delivers valuable data analysis at a lower cost to everyone involved Enables investors and brokers to replay market events and review historical data in simulated real-time “There’s no doubt that working in Adobe AIR is a huge benefit. The ability to process trading data on the desktop enables NASDAQ to deliver valuable data analysis at a lower cost to everyone involved.” Randall Hopkins Vice president, NASDAQ Market Data

23. SAP Transforming business data into rich, interactive dashboards and data presentations– without programming Challenge Accelerate new product innovation and user adoption of Business Intelligence (BI) tools through dynamic, impactful user experiences Solution: Xcelsius software Adobe AIR Adobe Flash Builder Adobe LiveCycle Data Services ES Results Accelerated product development from years to months Improved BI analysis Drove increased adoption of BI solutions across enterprises “With BI tools based on the Flash Platform, business users can quickly access and analyze enterprise data to better understand the business without assistance from IT or business analysts.” James ThomasVice President of Product Marketing, SAP BusinessObjects

24. FedEx Connecting customers to shipment tracking information online and offline Challenge Improve customer access to shipment tracking information, online as well as on the desktop Solution Adobe AIR Adobe Flex Results Delivered consistent customer experience online and offline Enabled easy-to-use, always on, branded tracking method Increased development productivity by almost 50% “… individual shippers, consignees, and small businesses will benefit most from the new, easy-to-use Adobe AIR application because they will have immediate access to critical information about their shipping and supply chain activities.” Aitza Anderson, product manager, FedEx All external content and images pending approvals.

25. The Flex Ecosystem TOOLS FRAMEWORK CLIENTS SERVICES SERVERS Flash Player Flex Flash Media Server Family Flash PlatformServices FlashCatalyst FlashProfessional Flash Builder AIR LiveCycle ColdFusion Creative Suite Analytics & Optimization

26. The Flex Ecosystem

27. The Flex Ecosystem Adobe Flash Platform Is an entire family of technologies you can use to create, run and provide data to RIAs, including client runtimes, tools, frameworks, servers and cloud services. Flash Platform Runtimes At the center of the Flash Platform are the client runtimes. Adobe Flash Player for the browser and Adobe AIR for outside the browser.

28. The Flash Player is the world’s most pervasive software 98% 95% of Internet-connected PCs worldwide have Flash Player installed of top 20 smart phones will support Flash Player this year 85% 3.5 million of Alexa 100 top websites use Flash Player develop using the Flash Platform 70% 98% penetration rate in enterprises - Forrester of web games are delivered using Flash Player 75% of enterprise professionals will seek Flash Platform development skills in 2011 (Society of Digital Agencies)

29. The Flex Ecosystem Adobe Flash Player Adobe Flash Player is a browser plugin or Active-X control with a rich object model and rendering engine that allows developers to include highly expressive and interactive content in web-applications To include this richer content, you create a SWF file using Developer tools and then reference this SWF file in your HTML page. When the browser parses the HTML page, the flash player downloads the SWF file and runs in the browser.

30. The Flex Ecosystem Adobe AIR Is a cross-operating-system runtime and set of tools that allow developers to deploy HTML, Ajax, and Flash Platform applications (SWF files) to the desktop. An emerging design pattern is to deliver a browser-based version for all users and a desktop version for the more active or power users-

31. Companies use Adobe AIR to deliver RIAs outside the browser 300 million AIR runtime installations 2.5 million AIR SDK installations 1 million Installations of Adobe AIR within one year of release 840 Applications in the Adobe AIR Marketplace

32. The Flex Ecosystem Flash Platform Tools Adobe Flash Builder (FB)Is an Eclipse-based development tool targeted at developers. With this IDE you use the Flex framework to create SWF files. Adobe Flash Catalyst (FC)Is a new interaction design tool for rapidly creating expressive interfaces and interactive content without writing code. Adobe Flash Professional (FL)Is the industry standard for interactive authoring.

34. Performance and load testing

35. Tooling plug-ins

36. Pre-built components

37. Product extensions, functions and code

38. 1,000+ global and regional system integrators, ISVs, and VARs

39. 52 Adobe Agency Partners, including the top digital agencies

40. 250+ training partners

41. More than 70 Open Screen Project members

43. Flex integrates with CLIENT APPLICATION TIER DESIGN &DEVELOPMENTTOOLS Browsers Creative Suite Flash Player AIR FlashProfessional HTTP/S, Sockets, AMF, RTMP, SOAP, WS*, SMTP, REST, … Flash Catalyst Flash Builder SERVICES TIER 3rd PartyServices Flex Framework Flash PlatformServices Flash Media Server Family LiveCycle RESOURCE TIER EIS Databases Directories ECM Repository MessageQueues SAP…

44. The Flex Ecosystem Flash Platform ServicesA set of hosted and managed services. Collaboration ServiceReal-time collaboration service featuring chat, audio, video and simple data. Distribution Servicefor distributing, promoting, tracking, and monetizing applications on e.g. social networks, mobile devices and desktops. Social Servicefor integrating with multiple social networks including Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, Yahoo, Google, AOL and many more…

45. Flash and HTML5 Adobe actually supports HTML The Flash Platform has integrated with HTML for 14 years. AIR 2.0 (desktop) includes support for HTML5. Adobe is committed to supporting HTML5 The Flash Platform delivers cross-platform, cross-browser, cross-device consistency. HTML5 implementations will differ and hinder content adoption of rich features, including video tag support. No consistency in codec support for video is yet visible.

46. Build Your First Application now lets get our hands dirty…

47. Build Your First Application Build The User Interface Connect to Data Create Pages Code Your Interactions

48. What We’re Building ? An simple staff management system

49. Build Your First Application Build The User Interface Create a New Flex Project Use Design Mode to Add Components Use Design Mode to Set Properties Change Component Attributes in MXML Browse and Run the Application

50. Build Your First Application Connect to Data Create a Flex Data Service Connect the getEmployees() Service Operation to a DataGrid Configure DataGrid Columns Browse and Debug the Application

51. Build Your First Application Create Pages Create Employees and Departments States Retrieve and Display Department Data in the Departments DataGrid Change Property Values in Different States Change a Property or Style Value in All States Create a New EmployeeDetails State Add Objects to Specific States

52. Build Your First Application Code Your Interactions Generate an Event Handler Change to the Departments State on a Button click Event Change the Employees State on a Button click event Change the EmployeeDetails State on a DataGrid change Event Clear the TextInput Component on a focusIn Event Change Styles on a click Event

53. Great Resources Adobe Developer Connection Flex Developer Center Learn Flex in a Week More than 335 user groups Adobe TV Tour de Flex Training Partners and Support Centres 1000’s of active bloggers and forums

54. Conclusion on 1. Day Setting up Environment Design Mode of Flex Using Source Mode of Flex Introduction to ActionScript 3.0 Interactivity and Events in Flex Using Data Binding in Flex Laying out in Flex and Flex Containers Creating Forms in Flex Displaying Data in Flex Application Flow and Visibility Working with View States