Skip to Content
Programming Flex 3
book

Programming Flex 3

by Chafic Kazoun, Joey Lott
September 2008
Intermediate to advanced
660 pages
20h 32m
English
O'Reilly Media, Inc.
Content preview from Programming Flex 3

Understanding Flex and Flash Authoring

Many developers first learning about Flex 3 may still be unclear as to the relationship between Flex and Flash authoring, the traditional tool for creating content for Flash Player. First, you do not have to understand Flash authoring in order to work with Flex. In fact, you can get started with Flex without any prior knowledge of or experience in Flash authoring.

Flash authoring is a product that was developed in 1996 as a vector animation tool primarily aimed at creating animation content for the Web. In the many versions since that time, both Flash authoring and Flash Player (the deployment platform for Flash authoring content) have enabled greater and greater capabilities, and developers began to create RIAs with the tools. However, although Flash authoring is a fantastic tool for creating animations, it is not the ideal tool for creating applications. The metaphors that Flash authoring uses at its core (such as timelines) are simply not applicable to application development.

Flex 3 is a product aimed primarily at creating applications. The framework includes a rich set of layout and user interface components, and the technology uses metaphors such as states and transitions that are appropriate to application development.

Both Flex and Flash authoring allow you to create .swf content that runs in Flash Player. In theory, you can achieve the same things using both products. However, Flash is a tool that allows you to create timeline-based animations ...

Become an O’Reilly member and get unlimited access to this title plus top books and audiobooks from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers, thousands of courses curated by job role, 150+ live events each month,
and much more.

Read now

Unlock full access

More than 5,000 organizations count on O’Reilly

AirBnbBlueOriginElectronic ArtsHomeDepotNasdaqRakutenTata Consultancy Services

QuotationMarkO’Reilly covers everything we've got, with content to help us build a world-class technology community, upgrade the capabilities and competencies of our teams, and improve overall team performance as well as their engagement.
Julian F.
Head of Cybersecurity
QuotationMarkI wanted to learn C and C++, but it didn't click for me until I picked up an O'Reilly book. When I went on the O’Reilly platform, I was astonished to find all the books there, plus live events and sandboxes so you could play around with the technology.
Addison B.
Field Engineer
QuotationMarkI’ve been on the O’Reilly platform for more than eight years. I use a couple of learning platforms, but I'm on O'Reilly more than anybody else. When you're there, you start learning. I'm never disappointed.
Amir M.
Data Platform Tech Lead
QuotationMarkI'm always learning. So when I got on to O'Reilly, I was like a kid in a candy store. There are playlists. There are answers. There's on-demand training. It's worth its weight in gold, in terms of what it allows me to do.
Mark W.
Embedded Software Engineer

You might also like

Programming Flex 2

Programming Flex 2

Chafic Kazoun, Joey Lott
Flex 3 Cookbook

Flex 3 Cookbook

Todd Anderson, Joshua Noble
Getting Started with Flex 3

Getting Started with Flex 3

Jack D. Herrington, Emily Kim
Flex 3 in Action

Flex 3 in Action

Jon Hirschi, Faisal Abid, Tariq Ahmed

Publisher Resources

ISBN: 9780596516215Errata