Flex is the quickest and most effective technology for the creation of Rich Internet Applications for the Web. Its extensive library of components and totally customizable framework, combined with the ubiquity of Flash Player, has guaranteed its success.

The ecosystem of products that rotate around Flex 2 and Flex 3 is really broad. Flex Builder, Flex SDK, and Charting Components are all essential parts of the technology that fit the different requirements of web development.

This enormous set of possibilities can easily lead to information overload for developers like you. There's just too much to learn and too many potential places to go when you hit a brick wall. Wouldn't it be nice to have a library of solutions to solve these problems quickly and easily?

This book provides just that, with more than 100 solutions to common problems in one handy volume.

Flex Solutions: Essential Techniques for Flex 2 and Flex 3 Developers faces problems and provides solutions that can be applied to any project, from the most simple to the most complex. The solutions range from customizing Flex components with ActionScript 3.0, using the data models and the ActionScript classes as Value objects, validating and formatting data, using RPC classes to access remote data, to optimizing data-exchange performance using AMF3.

Solutions are also provided for enhancing the security of Flex applications, and techniques are offered for optimizing the actual work environment by increasing the performance of Flex Builder, adding video content, and creating an AIR project to bring your web application onto the desktop.

If you want to learn about and start to develop rich Internet applications in a short time, being immediately productive and mastering the Flex development techniques, Flex Solutions: Essential Techniques for Flex 2 and 3 Developers is the book you need.

• Discover real-world solutions for everyday Flex development, saving hours of development time
• Learn how to customize and extend the Flex Components Model and design and program the look and feel of your Flex applications
• Learn best practices and tips from a Flex expert for structuring the architecture of Flex applications
• Use the Flex Remote Procedure Classes to connect to remote data with HTTPServices and the Java Platform, PHP, ColdFusion, WebServices, and RemoteObject
• Use Flex 3 features such as the AdvancedDataGrid component and the Charting Enhancements feature
• Port your rich Internet applications onto the desktop with Adobe AIR

What you’ll learn

• Tips on using Flex components
• How to validate and format data
• How to manage complex data
• Filtering, sorting and using cursors on data with collection classes
• How to consume Web Services using RPC components
• How to display data using list-based controls
• How to effectively compile and deploy Flex applications
• How to customize the look and feel of your applications
• How to make your applications more secure
• How to become more efficient in using the Flex Builder IDE
• Unique tricks such as calculating memory usage, making your Flex application into an active desktop, and customizing states
• How to use the ColdFusion Extensions for Flex Builder
• How to interface your Flex applications with server-side code written in PHP, Java, Rails, and ColdFusion
• Working with Flex in enterprise enviroment using the Flex Data Services, Java Remote Object and AMFPHP

Who this book is for

This book is for any Flex 2 or Flex 3 developer who is comfortable with the basics and wants to take their knowledge further with quick fire solutions to common problems. Please note that some of the solutions contained in this book require the Flex Builder 3 Professional release of the software.