Mobile Development Mikael KROK

Mobile Development: Build Your Application With Flex and Adobe Flash Builder

When I went to the French conference What’s Next in Paris (http://mikaelkrok.net/component/content/article/44-java/124-whats-next-java-2011-the-end) I was really impressed by the presentation of Flex and Adobe Flash Builder by Michael Chaize.

Flex and Adobe Flash Builder is a development platform that allows a developer to build a mobile application.

The problem when you want to develop a mobile application is that there are several platforms. First of all, you have iOS for Iphone and Ipad. But if you are a java fan, you would rather develop with that language and an open platform then you would choose Android from Google. In the end, you also want to consider Blackberry and, why not, Windows Mobile. The main reason is that if you want to start a professional application then iOS, BlackBerry and Windows Mobile have the main panel of users ready to pay.

Then maybe Flex is a potential solution.

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One Code To Build Them All...

Adobe Flex platform allows you to develop one code and compile them into source code for the three main platforms (iOS, Android, Blackberry).

The code provided by Adobe is MXML for the graphical layer. It’s a XML based language very useful to describe view, event and graphical interactivity.

It is mixed with ActionScript 3 which is not that far from Java so nobody gets lost

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You Don’t Need A Virtual Machine with Adobe Flex 4.5 and greater

In previous version, you needed a layer to be able to run Flex software. In Flex 4.5 and greater, there is no need of that. The code is directly compiled into native source code.

An Open Source Framework

Yes, you heard well! Flex is Open Source. This will bring joy in developer’s ears that need to dig into source code to understand how it works.

Powerful Software Based On A Platform That Most Of Us Know

Flex can be developed with any editor you like but Adobe provides a powerful editor which is Adobe Flash Builder (Last version is 4.6). That editor is based upon Eclipse so if you are like me you will be neither disappointed nor lost.

You can develop with Eclipse but I recommend you to try Adobe Flash Builder

http://www.adobe.com/go/try_flashbuilder/

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Great Presentation, Great Documentation, Great Possibilities...

Adobe put a great deal of efforts to give developers enough materials to get a good fresh start.

First of all, let me introduce you to Michael Chaize presentation (French) :

http://tv.adobe.com/fr/watch/adobe-live/presentation-dexperts-developpement-dapplications-flex-mobile/

English

http://tv.adobe.com/watch/adobe-technology-sneaks-2011/sneak-peek-of-mobile-application-development-with-flex-and-flash-builder/

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Then, when I started coding with Adobe Flash Builder, I followed this excellent, complete and very precise tutorial :

http://www.adobe.com/devnet/flex/articles/twitter-trends.html

You will build 3 screens that consumes twitter REST api to show trends, tweets and user info. Your first mobile application can be tested on a physical device and be packaged for the 3 main mobile platforms.

At the end, there are websites, documentation; there is also a very active forum and a fast growing community of experts.

A short list of interesting website :

- Adobe developer network : http://www.adobe.com/devnet.html

- http://flex.org/

- www.flex-tutorial.fr/

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In conclusion

If you are interested either in RIA (Rich Internet Application) or in mobile application development, please give some minutes to take a look at Adobe Flex and take another minute to try the Adobe Flash Builder. You won’t waste your time and you will probably enjoy it as I did.

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