Adobe Releases Flex 2.0 Beta

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Wednesday February 1, 2006 @03:41AM 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."

14 of 45 comments (clear)

Min score:

Reason:

Sort:

Behind the curve by archnerd · 2006-02-01 04:01 · Score: 4, Funny

$ flex --version
flex version 2.5.4
Isn't Lazslo the competition here? by sisina · 2006-02-01 04:01 · Score: 2, Insightful

I guess I'm not up to date on Sparkle, but I thought OpenLazslo was the clear competitor to Flex.
Eclipse goodness! by DamienMcKenna · 2006-02-01 04:03 · Score: 4, Interesting

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

Damien
steroids on a diet? by tverbeek · 2006-02-01 04:26 · 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/
Flex = a big huh? by Peganthyrus · 2006-02-01 04:32 · 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 · 2006-02-01 04:52 · 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 · 2006-02-01 05:00 · 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 b4k3d+b34nz · 2006-02-01 05:04 · 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.
4. Re:Flex = a big huh? by sisina · 2006-02-01 05:18 · 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.
5. Re:Flex = a big huh? by mjbkinx · 2006-02-01 06:12 · 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.
6. Re:Flex = a big huh? by fizgig76 · 2006-02-01 09:05 · 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. :)
7. Re:Flex = a big huh? by CyricZ · 2006-02-01 14:19 · 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.
A cool demo by inthehacker · 2006-02-01 06:38 · 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).
What Flex Is. by Tariq+Ahmed · 2006-02-01 13:22 · 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.