For example, a web page that shows a list of cell phones you can
buy can best be called a website and should be built in Flash or HTML. A web page that allows you to
organize that list by price and functions and then lets you order the one you want can best be
described as a rich Internet application.
It is true that Flash allows you to create this web application, but it would involve creating much of it
from scratch, taking a very long time and eating up a large budget. Flex uses prebuilt objects that can
be modified or used as they are to make this kind of more complex application faster and cheaper. The
prebuilt objects are part of the Flex framework, a collection of code libraries and application services
that make development easier. These services include data-binding tools, drag-and-drop management,
and visual effects, among others.
The use of prebuilt objects makes a big difference in the kinds of projects a team can create and the
kinds of production processes that come into play.
Creating your first project
The first project that we will be building is a simple web feed reader, just to give you a taste of what
the Flex workflow is like. If you??™re not already familiar with it, a web feed reader is a program that can
read and present the content of web feeds such as blogs within your site. A web feed is essentially an
XML file that contains the content from the blog you are viewing. You can see an example of the finished
web feed reader at http://lordalex.
Pages:
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31