RIA with Adobe Flex and AIR

I just happen to attend a talk on Rich Internet Applications with Adobe Flex and AIR, and like to share it with you on 26th April' 2008.

Making most out of the web, in the sense it started with Java Applets and Microsoft ActiveX, but they have some issues due to security and page loading which takes time (Applets). With the transition in the Web, AJAX came into the picture and people used it.
In 2002, Macromedia came with RIA i.e. Rich Internet Applications. It is a combination of flexibility, responsiveness and ease of use both for the Web and Desktop level.
Adobe came with RIA in form of Adobe Flex (http://www.adobe.com/products/flex/) and AIR (http://www.adobe.com/products/air/).

With Flex, it works on MXML i.e. a declarative XML language use to describe the UI and its behavior. One could make the Flex Applications using the Adobe Flex Builder and at the browser side one only needs the Adobe Flash Player and on the Desktop Adobe AIR (both are cross browser and cross-platform respectively).

When one creates the Flash .swf file (which has all the rich UI), when invoked it connects to the Adobe Flash Player -> which in-turns contacts the Web Server where all the business logic is invoked through the set of tags. One could as well call the Web Service methods.

Using Adobe Flex Builder which is very powerful IDE for making Flex applications has suite of controls like Data Grid, Tables, to name a few.

We looked at a very simple application, where in some controls were added to it and .swf file was created. The same code was used in Desktop Application and was deployed.

One more feature, that makes it pain free is packaging. It provided a packaging functionality where Desktop application was packaged and deployed at the system.