content/doc/flex/using/flx_intro_int.html - flex-site - Git at Google

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   the License.  You may obtain a copy of the License at

       http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0

   Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
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 <html lang="en-us" xml:lang="en-us">
 <head>
 <meta name="DC.Type" content="topic"/>
 <meta name="DC.Title" content="Introduction to Apache Flex"/>
 <meta name="DC.Format" content="XHTML"/>
 <meta name="DC.Identifier" content="WS6aa5ec234ff3f2851d96da0f125b7687eb5-8000_verapache"/>
 <title>Introduction to Apache Flex</title>
 </head>
 <body id="WS6aa5ec234ff3f2851d96da0f125b7687eb5-8000_verapache"><a name="WS6aa5ec234ff3f2851d96da0f125b7687eb5-8000_verapache"><!-- --></a>

    <div>
       <p>Flex is a powerful, open source, front-end application framework that
          allows developers to easily create apps for both desktop and mobile
          using the same programming model, tools, and codebase. Developers may
          use Flex to build natively installed apps targeting iOS™, Android™, and
          BlackBerry® Tablet OS devices on mobile, or they can deploy traditional
          desktop applications on Windows®, macOS®, and Linux.</p>

       <p>In the past, Flex applications were also deployed to web browsers using
          Adobe Flash Player. While browser deployment is no longer possible with
          Flex because Adobe discontinued its browser plugin in 2020, developers
          may continue to package Flex applications as native apps using the AIR
          SDK. Adobe has officially licensed the AIR SDK to HARMAN for continued
          development, and it is frequently updated to remain compatible with the
          latest operating system changes.</p>

       <p>Developers build Flex applications using ActionScript and MXML.
          ActionScript is an object-oriented programming language that was
          created as superset of the ECMAScript standard (more widely known as
          JavaScript), with a stronger focus on classes, interfaces, and strong
          typing. MXML is a declarative markup language for laying out
          custom user interface components with powerful built-in features like
          state management and data binding. Together, ActionScript and MXML
          provide developers with increased productivity and reduced cognitive
          load by separating concerns and eliminating redundant boilerplate.</p>

       <p>Dozens of built-in user interface components (buttons, sliders,
          lists, grids, drop-downs, and a variety of layout containers) make it
          easy to create many types of forms, dashboards, and visualizations.
          Developers can create high-level components with MXML to set properties
          and styles, listen for events, configure layouts, bind to data sources
          to automatically update views when the data changes, and use states to
          dynamically hide and show content. Flex also provides hooks into its
          lower-level component lifecycle that may be accessed from ActionScript
          to build completely new components that go beyond what Flex's built-in
          libraries provide out of the box, allowing developers to take full
          advantage of every graphical capability provided by Flash Player and
          AIR.</p>

       <p>Flex offers a variety of visual customization options for its UI
          components, including styling with CSS or replacing their default
          appearance with custom skins created by a designer. Styles
          include fonts (both those installed on the user's device and by
          embedding custom fonts), colors, borders, paddings, gaps, and other
          spacing. Skins may be created from both bitmap and vector graphics
          imported from a variety of design tools. Similarly, developers may use
          built-in animations and transitions to delight users and guide them
          through complex navigations within the app. All motion is fully
          configurable, to allow it to be as flashy or understated as
          desired.</p>

       <p>Usability features include data validation (to display helpful errors
          for users and prevent forms from being submitted until the issues are
          fixed); formatting numbers, currency, and other data strings;
          localization to display different strings in the application based on
          the user's language and region; displaying pop-up floating dialogs and
          modals that prevent mouse, touch, and keyboard access until the dialog is
          dismissed; drag-and-drop to move items within and between data-based
          controls; and accessibility hooks for screen readers and other
          assistive tooling.</p>

       <p>Flex supports a variety of build, testing, and deployment tools. The
          Flex SDK includes powerful command line compilers, and a variety of
          editors and integrated development environments (IDEs) either include
          built-in Flex projects or well-supported third-party plugins for
          Flex that can build Flex applications directly in the editor. FlexUnit
          provides unit and integration testing, and Flex also supports powerful
          enterprise automation tools for functional testing of user
          interactions. For deployment, Flex apps can be distributed as native
          apps in platform-specific app stores, or using downloadable installers.</p>

       <p>This manual brings together all of the features mentioned above into a
          single guide, to teach you how to develop applications with
          Flex. Start by learning the ActionScript and MXML languages. Then gain
          an understanding how to of compose the built-in UI components with
          layouts, states, and data binding to create powerful forms, dashboards,
          and data visualizations. Style and skin your Flex app to customize its
          appearance to match your brand's guidelines, integrating your workflow
          with a designer. Enhance usability with powerful features like
          validation, formatting, and drag-and-drop. Finally, create a release
          build, run tests, and deploy your app to your users.</p>
    </div>
    <div>
       <p><a href="index.html" class="btn">&laquo; Return to Using Flex</a></p>
    </div>
    <div>
       <p>Adobe and Adobe Flash are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Adobe Systems Incorporated in the United States and/or other countries and are used by permission from Adobe.  No other license to the Adobe trademarks are granted.</p>
    </div>


 </body>
 </html>
	<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
	<!--
	Licensed to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) under one or more
	contributor license agreements. See the NOTICE file distributed with
	this work for additional information regarding copyright ownership.
	The ASF licenses this file to You under the Apache License, Version 2.0
	(the "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance with
	the License. You may obtain a copy of the License at

	http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0

	Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
	distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
	WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
	See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
	limitations under the License.
	-->
	<!DOCTYPE html
	PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
	<html lang="en-us" xml:lang="en-us">
	<head>
	<meta name="DC.Type" content="topic"/>
	<meta name="DC.Title" content="Introduction to Apache Flex"/>
	<meta name="DC.Format" content="XHTML"/>
	<meta name="DC.Identifier" content="WS6aa5ec234ff3f2851d96da0f125b7687eb5-8000_verapache"/>
	<title>Introduction to Apache Flex</title>
	</head>
	<body id="WS6aa5ec234ff3f2851d96da0f125b7687eb5-8000_verapache"><a name="WS6aa5ec234ff3f2851d96da0f125b7687eb5-8000_verapache"><!-- --></a>

	<div>
	<p>Flex is a powerful, open source, front-end application framework that
	allows developers to easily create apps for both desktop and mobile
	using the same programming model, tools, and codebase. Developers may
	use Flex to build natively installed apps targeting iOS™, Android™, and
	BlackBerry® Tablet OS devices on mobile, or they can deploy traditional
	desktop applications on Windows®, macOS®, and Linux.</p>

	<p>In the past, Flex applications were also deployed to web browsers using
	Adobe Flash Player. While browser deployment is no longer possible with
	Flex because Adobe discontinued its browser plugin in 2020, developers
	may continue to package Flex applications as native apps using the AIR
	SDK. Adobe has officially licensed the AIR SDK to HARMAN for continued
	development, and it is frequently updated to remain compatible with the
	latest operating system changes.</p>

	<p>Developers build Flex applications using ActionScript and MXML.
	ActionScript is an object-oriented programming language that was
	created as superset of the ECMAScript standard (more widely known as
	JavaScript), with a stronger focus on classes, interfaces, and strong
	typing. MXML is a declarative markup language for laying out
	custom user interface components with powerful built-in features like
	state management and data binding. Together, ActionScript and MXML
	provide developers with increased productivity and reduced cognitive
	load by separating concerns and eliminating redundant boilerplate.</p>

	<p>Dozens of built-in user interface components (buttons, sliders,
	lists, grids, drop-downs, and a variety of layout containers) make it
	easy to create many types of forms, dashboards, and visualizations.
	Developers can create high-level components with MXML to set properties
	and styles, listen for events, configure layouts, bind to data sources
	to automatically update views when the data changes, and use states to
	dynamically hide and show content. Flex also provides hooks into its
	lower-level component lifecycle that may be accessed from ActionScript
	to build completely new components that go beyond what Flex's built-in
	libraries provide out of the box, allowing developers to take full
	advantage of every graphical capability provided by Flash Player and
	AIR.</p>

	<p>Flex offers a variety of visual customization options for its UI
	components, including styling with CSS or replacing their default
	appearance with custom skins created by a designer. Styles
	include fonts (both those installed on the user's device and by
	embedding custom fonts), colors, borders, paddings, gaps, and other
	spacing. Skins may be created from both bitmap and vector graphics
	imported from a variety of design tools. Similarly, developers may use
	built-in animations and transitions to delight users and guide them
	through complex navigations within the app. All motion is fully
	configurable, to allow it to be as flashy or understated as
	desired.</p>

	<p>Usability features include data validation (to display helpful errors
	for users and prevent forms from being submitted until the issues are
	fixed); formatting numbers, currency, and other data strings;
	localization to display different strings in the application based on
	the user's language and region; displaying pop-up floating dialogs and
	modals that prevent mouse, touch, and keyboard access until the dialog is
	dismissed; drag-and-drop to move items within and between data-based
	controls; and accessibility hooks for screen readers and other
	assistive tooling.</p>

	<p>Flex supports a variety of build, testing, and deployment tools. The
	Flex SDK includes powerful command line compilers, and a variety of
	editors and integrated development environments (IDEs) either include
	built-in Flex projects or well-supported third-party plugins for
	Flex that can build Flex applications directly in the editor. FlexUnit
	provides unit and integration testing, and Flex also supports powerful
	enterprise automation tools for functional testing of user
	interactions. For deployment, Flex apps can be distributed as native
	apps in platform-specific app stores, or using downloadable installers.</p>

	<p>This manual brings together all of the features mentioned above into a
	single guide, to teach you how to develop applications with
	Flex. Start by learning the ActionScript and MXML languages. Then gain
	an understanding how to of compose the built-in UI components with
	layouts, states, and data binding to create powerful forms, dashboards,
	and data visualizations. Style and skin your Flex app to customize its
	appearance to match your brand's guidelines, integrating your workflow
	with a designer. Enhance usability with powerful features like
	validation, formatting, and drag-and-drop. Finally, create a release
	build, run tests, and deploy your app to your users.</p>
	</div>
	<div>
	<p><a href="index.html" class="btn">« Return to Using Flex</a></p>
	</div>
	<div>
	<p>Adobe and Adobe Flash are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Adobe Systems Incorporated in the United States and/or other countries and are used by permission from Adobe. No other license to the Adobe trademarks are granted.</p>
	</div>


	</body>
	</html>