With the advancement of the human led technology more business activities started to depend upon the Internet - the world wide web of information. The Internet started to evolve too as the users felt they could get more out of the technology which would not only ease and streamline business electronically but also provide a rich user experience. To improve user experiences of the web and increase online business productivity there was the emergence of the rich Internet applications (RIAs) which run over the client-server network yet deliver the features and functionality of desktop resident software. Adobe Flex is one of the widely implemented RIA development platforms as Flex development enables the developers to create superior RIAs that run as a lightweight plug-in on the client browser and synchronize data dynamically with the server database.
Flex application development deploys expressive and interactive RIAs that are comprehensive of rich graphics, animations, multimedia playback, and everything that entertains the users while processing their business activities efficiently. Since Flex is built on the all-powerful and popular Flash technology. Adobe too aims to gap the bridge between the Flash designers and Flex developers by availing its commercial Flash Builder 4 which is an open source Eclipse based IDE for Flex development. Flex SDK 4 can be downloaded from Adobe's website for free by the developers. The SDK is regularly updated to include the latest cutting edge features for RIA development. Flex SDK is actually a guideline and a coding framework for Flex application development. With Flex development the developers can not only create web based applications but also deploy cross platform widgets that run on the client desktop through a lightweight Adobe Integrated Runtime (AIR) and interact with the server database over the Internet connection instead.
Flex development is a straightforward development process wherein an application is made to communicate with the server database dynamically. For the front-end to perform the Flex developers make use of the Adobe's native languages - XML based MXML for user interface markup and ActionScript to implement business logic. Flex can be easily integrated with all major server side technologies including Java, ASP.NET, Perl, Ruby, ColdFusion, and PHP. Flex application development works on using the class libraries that are shipped with the SDK for implementing the component behavior of the Flex applications. During RIA development, the Flex developers can build their own component which can be reused and extended later by others in their project development. Each of the useful components and modules are added to the SDK updates by Adobe. For a Flex developer to gain expertise on Flex development he must be well read of all the Flex libraries to utilize them optimally and hence impart the power and performance in their RIAs.
Flex developers can easily streamline your enterprise business processing by creating state-of-the art rich Internet applications that run on all major web browsers, operating systems, and even devices. All that is required by the client is to install a Flash player plug-in to support the Flex runtime. Today, almost every web browser comes with a Flash support and for the OSs the Adobe runtime (AIR) does it for them. The mobile devices like tablet PCs and mobile phones are now readily supporting Flash technology to sustain their popularity by supporting the run of Flex applications. Hence Flex is fast becoming the most widely used and accepted web development technology to improve performance, experience, and productivity altogether.
About the Author; iFlexWeb is a professional RIA development company and has a domain expertise in Flex development for deploying cross platform RIAs.
