The Essential Guide to Flex 3 (Paperback)

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)

Flex 3是一項革命性的網頁應用技術的下一代。它是Flash的下一個演進步驟，從網頁動畫媒體發展成為功能強大的企業網頁設計和開發平台。由於幾乎98%的網頁瀏覽器和越來越多的移動設備都運行Flash Player，對於任何嚴肅的網頁開發人員來說，了解Flex是不可或缺的。

本書將向您展示如何使用Flex 3創建功能強大的豐富互聯網應用程序。在學習如何安裝並熟悉Flex Builder 3軟件的基礎知識之後，您將深入探討Flash腳本語言ActionScript 3.0如何與Flex的強大類似XML的設計語言MXML互動。

您將學習如何使用佈局和導航容器構建應用程序，以及如何使用過渡在不同狀態之間切換。本書還介紹了如何最佳規劃應用程序並使用模型-視圖-控制器模式將開發的各個方面分離，以便輕鬆創建可能複雜的項目。

豐富的互聯網應用程序依賴於數據，本書展示了如何將來自各種來源的數據引入Flex應用程序並檢查其完整性，以及如何最佳地顯示和與之交互。

更進一步地，為Flash平台構建的應用程序現在可以存在並在傳統的網頁瀏覽器之外運行。Adobe AIR使您可以將應用程序帶到桌面，本書展示了如何重新應用您的Flex技能以利用這個新環境。

《Flex 3基本指南》通過一系列獨立的實用練習，帶您了解Flex的所有強大功能。然後，本書將這些技能結合在一個完整的案例研究應用程序中，展示了可以輕鬆應用於您自己的Flex應用程序的基本技術。

本書內容摘要如下：
- 第1章：Flex基礎
- 第2章：Flex和Flex Builder 3
- 第3章：ActionScript
- 第4章：容器
- 第5章：事件和組件
- 第6章：Flex和XML
- 第7章：格式化和層疊樣式表
- 第8章：重複器組件
- 第9章：拖放
- 第10章：案例研究：第1部分
- 第11章：案例研究：第2部分
- 第12章：Flex和數據
- 第13章：打印
- 第14章：圖表
- 第15章：Adobe集成運行時（AIR）