| Developer(s) | Adobe Systems |
|---|---|
| Initial release | June 20 2004 |
| Stable release | 4.5.1.21328 / May 3, 2011 |
| Development status | Committed |
| Operating system | Windows, Mac OS X and Linux |
| Available in | English and Japanese |
| Type | Rich Internet application |
| License | Mozilla Public License (Flash Builder and Flash Player under proprietary license) |
| Website | Adobe Flex Homepage |
Adobe Flex is a software development kit (SDK) released by Adobe Systems for the development and deployment of cross-platform rich Internet applications based on the Adobe Flash platform. Flex applications can be written using Adobe Flash Builder or by using the freely available Flex compiler from Adobe.
The release in March 2004 by Macromedia included an SDK, an Integrated development environment (IDE), and a Java EE integration application known as Flex Data Services. Since Adobe purchased Macromedia in 2005, subsequent releases of Flex no longer require a license for Flex Data Services, which has become a separate product rebranded as LiveCycle Data Services. An alternative to Adobe LiveCycle Data Services is BlazeDS, an open-source project that started with code contributed in 2007 by Adobe.
In February 2008, Adobe released the Flex 3 SDK under the open source Mozilla Public License and so Flex applications can be developed using any standard IDE, for example Eclipse.
On November 17th, 2011, Adobe officially open-sourced Flex and donated it to the Apache Software Foundation.[1]
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Technologies that are commonly compared to Flex include Curl, OpenLaszlo, Ajax, XUL, JavaFX, Windows Presentation Foundation, Silverlight and HTML5.
Macromedia targeted the enterprise application development market with its initial releases of Flex 1.0 and 1.5. The company offered the technology at a price around US$15000 per CPU. Required for deployment, the Java EE application server compiled MXML and ActionScript on-the-fly into Flash applications (binary SWF files). Each server license included 5 licenses for the Flex Builder IDE.
Adobe significantly changed the licensing model for the Flex product line with the release of Flex 2. The core Flex 2 SDK, consisting of the command-line compilers and the complete class library of user interface components and utilities, was made available as a free download. Complete Flex applications can be built and deployed with only the Flex 2 SDK, which contains no limitations or restrictions compared to the same SDK included with the Flex Builder IDE.
Adobe based the new version of Flex Builder on the open source Eclipse platform. The company released two versions of Flex Builder 2, Standard and Professional. The Professional version includes the Flex Charting Components library.
Enterprise-oriented services remain available through Flex Data Services 2. This server component provides data synchronization, data push, publish-subscribe and automated testing. Unlike Flex 1.0 and 1.5, Flex Data Services is not required for the deployment of Flex applications.
Coinciding with the release of Flex 2, Adobe introduced a new version of the ActionScript programming language, known as Actionscript 3, reflecting the latest ECMAScript specification. The use of ActionScript 3 and Flex 2 requires version 9 or later of the Flash Player runtime. Flash Player 9 incorporated a new and more robust virtual machine for running the new ActionScript 3.
Flex was the first Macromedia product to be re-branded under the Adobe name.
On April 26, 2007 Adobe announced their intent to release the Flex 3 SDK (which excludes the Flex Builder IDE and the LiveCycle Data Services) under the terms of the Mozilla Public License.[2] Adobe released the first beta of Flex 3, codenamed Moxie, in June 2007. Major enhancements include integration with the new versions of Adobe's Creative Suite products, support for AIR (Adobe's new desktop application runtime), and the addition of profiling and refactoring tools to the Flex Builder IDE.
Adobe released Flex 4.0 (code named Gumbo) on March 22, 2010.[3] The Flex 4 development environment is called Adobe Flash Builder,[4] formerly known as Adobe Flex Builder.
Some themes that have been mentioned by Adobe and have been incorporated into Flex 4 are as follows:
Flash Builder is available in two versions: Standard and Premium,[6] the premium adds the following features;
May 3rd, 2011, Adobe shipped Flash Builder 4.5 formerly called Flex 4.5 which delivers full support for building Flex and ActionScript applications for Google Android, as well as support for building ActionScript applications for BlackBerry Tablet OS and Apple iOS. An update to Flash Builder 4.5 and Flex 4.5 adds support for building Flex applications for BlackBerry Tablet OS and Apple iOS.
Flex 4.5 SDK delivers many new components and capabilities, along with integrated support in Flash Builder 4.5 and Flash Catalyst CS 5.5. With the Adobe Flex 4.5 SDK which is governed by three main goals:
On October 2, 2007, Adobe announced a new design tool related to Flex codenamed Adobe Thermo. On November 17, 2008 Adobe announced the official name of the product would be Adobe Flash Catalyst.[7]
LiveCycle Data Services (previously called Flex Data Services) is a server-side complement to the main Flex SDK and Flash Builder IDE and is part of a family of server-based products available from Adobe. Deployed as a Java EE application, LiveCycle Data Services adds the following capabilities to Flex applications:
Previously available only as part of Adobe LiveCycle Data Services ES, Adobe plans to contribute the BlazeDS technologies to the community under the LGPL v3. BlazeDS gives Adobe developers free access to the remoting and messaging technologies developed by Adobe.
Concurrent with pre-release of BlazeDS, Adobe is publishing the AMF binary data protocol specification, on which the BlazeDS remoting implementation is based, and is attempting to partner with the community to make this protocol available for major server platforms.
Granite Data Services (GraniteDS) is the main open source alternative to Adobe JavaEE server solutions (LCDS and BlazeDS). It is released under the LGPL v2.1 and provides:
Flex 2 offers special integration with ColdFusion MX 7. The ColdFusion MX 7.0.2 release adds updated Flash Remoting to support ActionScript 3, a Flex Data Services event gateway, and the Flex Data Services assembler. Flex Builder 2 also adds extensions for ColdFusion providing a set of wizards for RAD Flex development. A subset of Flex 1.5 is also embedded into ColdFusion MX 7 middleware platform, for use in the ColdFusion Flash forms feature. It is possible to use this framework to write rich internet applications, although its intended purpose is for rich forms only.
Since 2008, Adobe has made Flash Builder and ColdFusion available to all educational customers for free on their website.
There are a number of application frameworks available which help the developer solve some common tasks and set up the application structure according to best practices.
Adobe has been developing a new file format for cross application use. It has been specifically stated that the first aim was for use with Flex.
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