Programming Flex 3

Creating Projects

A Flex application consists of potentially many files. Although it’s possible that a Flex project could consist of as little as one source file, most use tens if not hundreds of files. A typical Flex project might utilize the following:

MXML files

These files contain the majority of the application view—the layout and UI components. You can read an introduction to MXML in Chapter 3. You can also learn about application and MXML components (both written in MXML) in Chapter 9.

ActionScript classes

These files contain the source code for all the custom components, data models, client-side business logic, and server proxies. You will find an introduction to ActionScript in Chapter 4.

XML files

Although XML is frequently loaded from a server as a dynamic response to an HTTP request from Flash Player, many applications also utilize static XML files as configuration parameters.

Image files

Flex applications can embed image files or load them at runtime. We cover working with images in Chapter 11.

Audio and video files

Flex applications can load audio and video content for playback within the application. Audio and video are almost always loaded at runtime. We discuss audio and video in Chapter 11.

Runtime shared libraries

Runtime shared libraries are .swf files that contain code libraries that are shared between two or more Flex applications deployed on the same domain. To utilize a runtime shared library, you need two files: an .swf and an .swc. The .swf file contains the libraries, ...