Book Image

Flex 3 with Java

Book Image

Flex 3 with Java

Overview of this book

Flex 3 is a great technology for developing Rich Internet Applications for the Web as well as for the desktop. If you are a developer looking to design great-looking and sophisticated user interfaces that resemble desktop-based applications, and want to utilize an existing server technology such as Java to develop RIAs, this book is for you. Targeting developers who want to get started with Adobe Flex 3 programming, this simple and clear handbook introduces Flex technology quickly and straightforwardly. Utilizing your existing knowledge of Java, it gives you the insight and hands-on experience to program with Flex 3. This book provides comprehensive information on various aspects of Flex 3 and ActionScript 3.0. These include developing simple applications, handling events, creating custom components and events, using RPC services, integration with Java and BlazeDS, styling and formatting, and how to package and deploy Flex applications. You will start with downloading, installing and configuring Flex 3 SDK and Flex Builder 3 and learn basic concepts such as what MXML and ActionScript are, understanding UI components, controls, compilers, and more. Further you will develop simple applications and slowly advance into more depth where you will learn advanced concepts such as creating custom components, debugging, integrating with Java, using RPC services, styling, internationalizing, and deploying Flex applications, and more. One of the things you're really going to love about this book is that you will develop a full-blown e-commerce application using a combination of Flex 3, ActionScript 3.0, BlazeDS 3.2, and Java. At the end of the book you will have the knowledge and experience needed to develop Rich Internet Applications.
Table of Contents (18 chapters)
Flex 3 with Java
Credits
About the Author
About the Reviewers
Preface
8
Communicating with Server-side Java

About MXML


MXML is a declarative XML-based language which is used to lay out user interfaces in Flex. MXML is mainly used to declaratively lay out the user interfaces of Flex applications, but it can also be used to create complex business logic and behaviors. As I mentioned earlier, MXML is based on XML standards which makes it easy to understand and learn. The MXML acronym does not have any official meaning, but some believe that it stands for Multimedia eXtensible Markup Language.

Let's take a look at the anatomy of a general MXML file. All MXML documents begin with an XML declaration. This declaration is used by the XML standard to specify the type of document and a small amount of information about versioning (for the parsers) and encoding of the document. You don't need to have an XML declaration, but you should have it as a good practice.

The following is an XML declaration:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>

The next line is where you declare your Application tag as a...