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Adobe Releases Flex 2.0 Beta

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on from the still-seeing-microsoft-as-the-enemy dept.

An anonymous reader writes "The battle between Microsoft and Adobe continues as Adobe releases the beta of Flex 2.0. This comes just a few days after Microsoft released a preview of Sparkle. From the article: 'Adobe today released the beta version of Flex 2.0, the latest software from Adobe Labs. The release follows the Alpha test release in earlier January. Aimed at developers of Internet content, the beta version of Flex includes Flash Player 8.5 client, Flex Framework 2.0, as well as Flex Builder 2.0, Flex Enterprise Services 2.0 and Flex Charting Components.' Some of the cool new features include the ability to view source so you can see how the Flash application was built, and an announcement today that some of the tools to build Flash applications will be available for free."

45 comments

  1. Flash and Flex? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Sounds like something out of a Motorola cellphone.

  2. What a sophisticated technology! by vear · · Score: 1, Informative

    From Wikipedia:
    The FLEX single-tasking operating system was developed by the company TSC for the Motorola 6800 in the 1970s. It was also later ported to the Motorola 6809.

    That's surely a must-have!

    1. Re:What a sophisticated technology! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And Sparkle is a media player for MacOS from the early '90s.

  3. Behind the curve by archnerd · · Score: 4, Funny

    $ flex --version
    flex version 2.5.4

    1. Re:Behind the curve by jgrahn · · Score: 1
      $ flex --version
      flex version 2.5.4

      That's only Flex Builder you have there. You need "Flex Enterprise Services" and "Flex Charting Components" to leverage the ... oh crap, I've run out of buzzwords.

  4. Isn't Lazslo the competition here? by sisina · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I guess I'm not up to date on Sparkle, but I thought OpenLazslo was the clear competitor to Flex.

    1. Re:Isn't Lazslo the competition here? by civilizedINTENSITY · · Score: 1

      OpenLazslo uses the Common Public Liscense (CPL). Isn't that incompatible with the GPL? Could/would OpenLazslo ever be dual licesnsed to be GPL compatible? Does the new and improved GPL beta indicate the CPL will still be a problem for GPL developers?

    2. Re:Isn't Lazslo the competition here? by hritcu · · Score: 1

      What does this have to do with what the parent asked?
      The answer is yes: OpenLaszlo is the direct competitor to Flex, and rather than being totally trashed by Macromedia (now Adobe) they decided to open source their product. I don't know about you, but I would rather be using a GPL-incompatible open source product than a commercial one. But maybe this is just me ... licence purists can still wait for projects like GplFlash or Gnash to catch up. However I doubt this will happen anytime soon.

      --
      If you don't fail at least 90 percent of the time, you're not aiming high enough. (Alan Kay)
  5. Eclipse goodness! by DamienMcKenna · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Note that the IDE is based on the Eclipse platform! Good work Adobe!

    Damien

  6. Awesome-Intranets. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    "Great!!! Flash just got better!! I can't wait for FlexBlock to come out for Firefox so I can feel like I'm REALLY getting value from the open source community."

    Great!!! Another knee-jerk response from the slashdot:"I hate Flash" department. It's not for you buddy. It's more for Intranets.

  7. steroids on a diet? by tverbeek · · Score: 4, Funny
    Flex, internally, is "AJAX on steroids," .... Flex is "Microsoft Vista on a diet,"]

    Based on this, I'd say that Mister Flex is taking serious medical risks, and should seek the immediate care of a physician.

    --
    http://alternatives.rzero.com/
  8. Flex = a big huh? by Peganthyrus · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I used to be a professional Flash geek and I can't tell what the hell Flex is. I dunno if this is an inherited Macromedia name or an Adobe name - probably Macromedia, as I found a lot of their tool names to be cryptic and uninspiring. Blah blah 'rich applications' blah blah blah. Blah blah same hype as 'AJAX' except with Flash wedged in.

    But Flash has been going down this "platform" route for the past several revisions, with increasingly more annoying UI in the editor for animators - the 5->MX transition threw a bunch of speedbumps right in the middle of the animation workflow, and they seem to be slated to linger forever. I keep hoping the Adobe buyout will mean they actually fix the editor UI to not require about twice the clicks it used to for basic symbol-oriented animation...

    --
    egypt urnash minimal art.
    1. Re:Flex = a big huh? by abigor · · Score: 4, Interesting

      This stuff isn't for simple animations. It's for creating rich web apps - imagine something with the interactivity of a normal desktop app, but it runs in the browser. Our UI team is using it, and I have to say, it's impressive.

      So it's a combination of ActionScript (i.e. ECMAScript), plus a bunch of widgets, plus an event loop, etc. It's really the only game in town if you want to write desktop-style apps that live in the browser - a big advantage, for example, is that you can open a socket to the server and receive asynchronous events, unlike an AJAX-based app, which must poll.

      That's not to say it's without problems. The UI guys report a buggy ide to be the most maddening thing. Plus, of course, it's proprietary, which may be a problem for some.

    2. Re:Flex = a big huh? by mjbkinx · · Score: 2, Informative
      I used to be a professional Flash geek and I can't tell what the hell Flex is. I dunno if this is an inherited Macromedia name or an Adobe name - probably Macromedia, as I found a lot of their tool names to be cryptic and uninspiring. Blah blah 'rich applications' blah blah blah. Blah blah same hype as 'AJAX' except with Flash wedged in.

      So, you don't know what it is but state it's the "same hype as 'AJAX' except with Flash wedged in"?

      But Flash has been going down this "platform" route for the past several revisions, with increasingly more annoying UI in the editor for animators - the 5->MX transition threw a bunch of speedbumps right in the middle of the animation workflow, and they seem to be slated to linger forever. I keep hoping the Adobe buyout will mean they actually fix the editor UI to not require about twice the clicks it used to for basic symbol-oriented animation...

      If you want to make animations, Flex will disappoint you. There isn't even a timeline. It's targeted at developers, not designers, but yes, it's a Macromedia product.

      Personally, I think it's great. The compiler is written in Java, so it works on Linux, too. The next Flashplayer (8.5) has new VM with JIT compiling, and is much, much faster than the old one (they'll skip v8 and are working on a Linux version for 8.5 already).

    3. Re:Flex = a big huh? by Peganthyrus · · Score: 1

      Buggy and frustrating UI is pretty much par for the course when you're dealing with Macromedia, in my experience.

      me, I tend to go "oh, gawd, a Flash app" as soon as they start making sounds on button rollover, and bail. But I spent enough time beating my head against Flash, and having bad experiences connected with it, that I'm biased against it.

      --
      egypt urnash minimal art.
    4. Re:Flex = a big huh? by b4k3d+b34nz · · Score: 2, Informative

      Flex has been around for quite some time now--way before Macromedia was acquired.

      Here's the breakdown: Flex allows you to create web applications using Flash as the interface. Yeah, you can do this yourself, but Flex does all the hard work, such as laying out the UI and joining it with the business logic. If you've programmed your application using MVC or some other tiered application development pattern, you should be able to hook your Flex-built Flash movie into the business logic controller and it will work. The advantage to doing it this way is that you don't have to fool around with HTML/CSS/JS and getting it to work cross-browser. Flash is Flash--you do it once and it looks right, no cross-browser problems.

      It's not meant to replace simple menus and contact forms, it's for creating hardcore programs--things like a CRM tool or project management software. Pretty much anything enterprise-wide.

      The reason it might not make sense to you is because you're a designer/animator, not a programmer. Or at least that's how it sounds. Web app developers can get pretty excited about Flex--it saves the work of designing the application cross browser, and most of the components are prebuilt and more powerful than standard web counterparts. It's ridiculous trying to build a dynamic chart on the web.

      --
      Grammar Lesson: you're is a contraction of "you are"; your means you possess something; yore means days gone by.
    5. Re:Flex = a big huh? by sisina · · Score: 3, Informative

      It's really the only game in town if you want to write desktop-style apps that live in the browser

      I'm curious to know if your team looked into OpenLaszlo. There are some pretty nice apps built on it—the Behr Paint ColorSmart tool used an early version (before they opened the source), and I think Pandora is built on it as well. I'd really like to hear from someone who's compared the two. I have a database-driven Flash project coming up, and I can buy Flex if I have a good reason to, but if Laszlo will work it would sure be nice.

    6. Re:Flex = a big huh? by TuringTest · · Score: 1

      I find great promise in OpenLazslo. It's a technology quite similar to Flex, and it's actually Open Source. I think it currently doesn't have such a good IDE, though.

      --
      Singularity: a belief in the "God" idea with the "demiurge" relation inverted.
    7. Re:Flex = a big huh? by mjbkinx · · Score: 2, Informative
      I have a database-driven Flash project coming up, and I can buy Flex if I have a good reason to, but if Laszlo will work it would sure be nice.

      Flexbuilder 2 is for Flashplayer 8.5, which is at "prerealese" at the moment. The Linux version is being worked on, but I guess it'll take a while, and then it will take time for users to install it.
      In any case, you can download the (Windows-) Beta already and compare.

    8. Re:Flex = a big huh? by civilizedINTENSITY · · Score: 1

      Well both Flex's IDE and OpenLazslo's IDE are Eclipse based, so I'm assuming they *could* converge if people wanted to the OpenLazslo's IDE to look for Flexible...;-)

    9. Re:Flex = a big huh? by cyber-vandal · · Score: 1

      Flash is Flash--you do it once and it looks right, no cross-browser problems.

      Perhaps you could explain why this site works fine in IE but there's just a big white square down the bottom right in FF and doesn't want to work at all in Opera. It's the Flash that doesn't want to work (plus it's an annoying ASP site as well but that's another flamewar).

    10. Re:Flex = a big huh? by abigor · · Score: 1

      No, I don't think they looked at it. It does look interesting, but they've gone down another path, and Flash/Flex is working for them, so that's the route they're taking.

    11. Re:Flex = a big huh? by b4k3d+b34nz · · Score: 1

      Yeah, this is the only cross-browser problem Flash has. I stand corrected. The problem is that the movie has a parameter of transparent added to it, so that any area within the Flash movie that doesn't have any content is see-through. I'm pretty sure that FF has transparency support, and Opera 9 supposedly does too, but you're right--neither one works.

      In any application made with Flex, transparency shouldn't really be added anyway, so this won't be an issue. The big deal for most people is the whole JavaScript drop-down menu disappearing behind a Flash movie--transparency is the only workaround.

      The dumb part is: in this case, it doesn't look like the movie even needs to be transparent.

      --
      Grammar Lesson: you're is a contraction of "you are"; your means you possess something; yore means days gone by.
    12. Re:Flex = a big huh? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Um...Flex 2.0 Beta has been publicly available for awhile on the MM labs site, I'm guessing this is just an update?

      Anyway, the best part is that you can compile SWF's from the IDE, you don't need the ungodly expensive enterprise server to run it.

      I've been using Flash for years, and if you want to do apps, not animations, Flex is simply awesome. The speed and simplicity with which you can develop is really something. Re-skinning components can be kind of a pain, but I'm sure there'll be skin sets you can purchase within a few months.

      I don't want to dis Ajax because I do use it on occasion for quick 'n simple additions to an existing app or site, but if you're going from the ground up Flex is definitely worth a look. Do you want to check for a hojillion different broswer versions and write dozens of js workarounds based on that, or just require a plug-in most people have?

      The only glaring problem is that 2.0 compiled swf's require FP 8.5, which won't be publicly available for awhile, and once it is will take a year or so to get to a safe adoption level.

      If you hate Flash, I strongy urge you to play around with Flex 2.0 Beta and do one of the tutorials on the site.

    13. Re:Flex = a big huh? by fizgig76 · · Score: 2, Informative

      Laszlo was around before Flex existed, and it works on Flash Player 5 (whereas Flex requires version 7.) In fact, that's one of the biggest differences between the two, if you want to leverage the features (and improvements) specific to Flash Player 7 and above, you can't do it in Laszlo (yet.) They also use different XML dialects for construction, and many people find Flex's to be easier to use and more powerful. I don't have much hands on experience with either, sad to say, but I did weigh Laszlo against Flex 1.5 awhile back, and tested out Laszlo locally and it didn't really cut it for what I was looking for. Having just started using ColdFusion's new Flash forms (which use a mini Flex server embedded in the CF server) I am itching to get my hands on Flex 2. Of course, that would require having the time to play with it. :)

    14. Re:Flex = a big huh? by CyricZ · · Score: 1

      We keep hearing about how great these "rich" web-based applications are. At one point it was in the form of Java applets, then ActiveX controls, then Flash, and now this. Yet the fact remains that such technologies never prove useful beyond demos and very simple applications.

      If you really want to make available crossplatform solutions, using C++ and a toolkit like wxWidgets or Qt is still often the best way to go. Of course, that doesn't rule out Python and wxPython, but then you need to ensure that at least a Python interpreter is available on your client's system.

      So while many developers waste their time with these buzzword technologies, those of us developing real applications that are actually used for productive purposes will stick to using C++ and the various crossplatform toolkits.

      --
      Cyric Zndovzny at your service.
    15. Re:Flex = a big huh? by CyricZ · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Taking a quick glance at the source snippets, that OpenLaszlo system looks like a major pain in the ass to use. Its misuse of XML is quite disturbing. Code like that just isn't maintainable, and for serious applications a lack of maintainability is completely unacceptable.

      One doesn't want to judge a language or application framework purely by its syntax, but when one sees something like that, one just knows that it's a bad idea.

      --
      Cyric Zndovzny at your service.
  9. Re:Awesome by iamdaflash · · Score: 0

    Jokes on you, Ahahahhahahaha! There is no flex plugin, it uses the flash one! So your already getting value out of the open source community.

  10. Need Firefox extension now... by boy_afraid · · Score: 0

    Now it seems that we will need a Firefox extension to block this new problem!

  11. Mac Intel Forecast? by confusednoise · · Score: 1

    Maybe a bit off topic, but I can't find the answer on Macrobe's site(s) - anyone know what the forecast is for when Flash/Flex etc. will be available as Universal binaries for Mac OSX?

    1. Re:Mac Intel Forecast? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You can download Flash Player 8.5 Alpha 3 for Mac from labs.adobe.com today. Adobe is planning a release of Flex Builder for the Mac, but no dates yet.

  12. Flex closer to Java or ASP/PHP/ASP.NET/JSP by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Flex is closer to Java Applets hype than AJAX hype.

  13. A cool demo by inthehacker · · Score: 2, Informative

    This Harley Davidson customizer is a cool example of something built using Flex (though granted, its not built using Flex 2.0).

  14. Did you forget Java? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    and you can't open a socket under 1024 with flash (version 7 anyways) ... so none of the regular services.

    1. Re:Did you forget Java? by abigor · · Score: 1

      Actually, Java would have been a great pick were it not for the massive download of the JRE, which doesn't work for our clients. The Flash download is much smaller, and it often comes preinstalled.

    2. Re:Did you forget Java? by zemoo · · Score: 1

      That's a security limitation in Windows. None of the options are going to let you open a socket under 1024 without proper security.

  15. Flex = a big huh?-Curl by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    www.curl.com is another technology.

  16. Eh? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    What does a lexer have to do with macromedia flash? Are Adobe's marketing department really that clueless?

  17. What Flex Is. by Tariq+Ahmed · · Score: 5, Informative
    For those asking: At a real basic level, Flex is an XML language that let's you compile Flash applications. Developing an application in Flash directly is extremely time consuming, and not suited for developer types.

    On a more complex level, Flash based Flex applications are robust interactive SOA applications with the ability to easily hook into various data services (JMS/Messaging, AMF[POJOs,OpenAMF via PHP, Coldfusion CFCs], XML over HTTP, and WebServices/SOAP).

    So you can make rich desktop like applications with all the great stuff like drag and drop, interact with video, webcams, microphones, key events like CTRL and Function keys. Thin clients, where the app loads once. But have the deployment ease of a web application, and are platform agnostic (unix,mac,windows,pdas,cellphones,etc....).

    Though the best way to see what it's all about is to look at live applications on the web:

    http://maps.yahoo.com/beta/Yahoo Maps
    http://www.thoughtfaqtory.com/flex/mxnaviewer/main .swfBlog Reader
    http://weblogs.macromedia.com/pent/flickr/PhotoSea rch.htmlFlickr PhotoSearch.

    1. Re:What Flex Is. by qantrell · · Score: 1

      Showcase gallery of Flex 2 apps:

      http://labs.macromedia.com/showcase/

      You can right-click on most of the apps to view their source.

  18. XML programming langauges aren't feasible. by CyricZ · · Score: 1

    Does using XML in such a fashion really save time? Does it truly make a programmer more productive? I truly doubt that it does.

    Typing out

    <method name="setCoords" arg="x" arg="y">
     
    // JavaScript here

    </method>

    when you want to write a method is surely the wrong way to go about writing code. Not only is it difficult to read, but it takes far too much typing. Basically any other OO language makes creating a method short and simple, as it's such a fundamental and oft-performed task.

    What starts out as 30 or 40 unnecessary characters for one method quickly balloons up to 300000 or 400000 extra characters when you start building serious applications consisting of millions of lines of code. It takes time to type half a million unneeded characters. When time is valuable, such waste isn't acceptable.

    So you end up not gaining any productivity improvement when it comes to initially developing the app. It may even take longer to develop, due to the extraneous typing that is necessary, and the code being far more difficult to read quickly. Then it's a hassle to maintain, assuming maintenance is even possible.

    Sorry, languages with an XML syntax just don't cut it for real-world applications.

    --
    Cyric Zndovzny at your service.
    1. Re:XML programming langauges aren't feasible. by njx · · Score: 1

      Actually, Flex lets you program entirely in a straight OO language (ActionScript 3, which is based on the upcoming ECMAScript 4 specification) if you want. MXML is mainly used as a declarative way to describe the layout and navigation of the UI. Under the hood, though, MXML just gets compiled into ActionScript, so you can just write it all in pure code if you want. AS3 looks much like a normal modern OO language (Java, C#, etc.), though it retains some of the dynamic flexibility of JS (you can create untyped objects if you want). nj (Adobe)

    2. Re:XML programming langauges aren't feasible. by diamondtearz · · Score: 1

      Actually the XML is intented to be used for laying out the application and even in that case you can let the IDE write out the XML code for you behind the scenes. The methods in the application are written in ActionScript 3.0 and behave like the methods in many other object oriented languages. Creating layouts with XML has been adopted by several languages as an effective and quick way to declaratively create the User interface. Mozilla's XUL and several java tools and even c++ (entity-c) have all found this technique to be a rapid and effective way to get the layout done quickly.