Adobe Releases Flex 3, AIR 1 and BlazeDS!

by Judith Dinowitz

Today, February 25th, Adobe announced that they are releasing the final version of AIR 1.0, Flex Framework 3 and Flex Builder 3. These releases, by themselves, are significant. But far more significant is Adobe's announcement that they're releasing two of their products as open-source: BlazeDS, a new product that interfaces between the Java Server and RIA clients, such as Flex and AJAX, and the Flex 3 framework.

BlazeDS is written in Java and sits on a Java server, and has two primary features:

1. Remoting – This allows for remote object calls, otherwise known as AMF calls, to remote servers, to transfer data from databases and other sources. BlazeDS allows the Flex developer to invoke objects running on a Java application server as if they were local objects. It also transforms ActionScript data types into Java data types and vice versa. It integrates into the security model set up on the J2EE server.
2. Messaging - Developers can push messages from the server on an event basis, or can transmit to other connected Flash clients in real time.

BlazeDS shows Adobe's commitment to opening up the RIA world to Java developers. The new communication between the Java server and Flex in BlazeDS will make Flex more attractive to the Java world.

Adobe is officially opening up the open-source Flex framework as well. Those who wish to participate in the Flex open-source project, which covers the framework but not Adobe's Flex Builder IDE, should visit opensource.adobe.com/flex. By open-sourcing the Flex framework and SDK, Adobe is working with the community to better their own products, which will only result in more feature-rich applications for everybody.

To get the inside scoop, Fusion Authority sat down with Phil Costa, Director of Product Management at Adobe.

Costa was very enthusiastic about the direction in which Adobe was taking their Rich Internet Application product line. "This is a step forward for the overall RIA technology program," said Costa. He talked about Adobe's overall strategy with the Flex framework. They have created an application framework and an open API, a rich, usable component library, and they have provided tools that help people work with the Flex framework: Flex builder for the programmer and CS3 for the designer.

With the release of AIR 1.0, they are introducing a product that allows developers to take the same applications that they built in ColdFusion, Flex, Ajax or HTML, and put them on the desktop. Costa stressed that since launching Flex 2 over 18 months ago, the market has accelerated behind the RIA concept. RIAs have gone from being the purview of leading ColdFusion and Flex customers to a major component in the regular internet platform of companies like Oracle.

Today, a number of Adobe partners are launching major applications that are going live.

Ebay is launching Ebay desktop (http://desktop.ebay.com/).

AOL has built a flex-based interface into its "xDrive" file sharing service.

NASDAQ is releasing an application called instant market replay which lets traders view recordings of all stock transactions that went through NASDAQ and offers a rich, analytical program.

The New York Times is going live with an AJAX-based application running on AIR called ShifB. It allows users to share content from webfeeds or articles on NYTimes, attach personal notes to that content and send it to friends.

Here are some of the new features of AIR 1.0 and Flex 3 that will pique the interest of developers:

1. Adobe has improved some of the core technologies used to build Flex and AIR applications: They've added a skinning workflow (which helps designers and developers work between multiple applications), more advanced profiling and debugging tools, and an enriched component library in Flex Builder (including enhanced charting and data display components).
2. Some of AIR's new features include the ability to drag and drop between the operating system and AIR applications, local database storage (AIR has a full SQL database embedded in it, based on SQL Lite) and local file access, including the ability to drag files from finder or windows explorer and drop them into an AIR application.
3. AIR applications are digitally signed. As someone's downloading the application, they have to be aware of what it is. Before the application can install itself, the user sees where it came from, and has to approve it before it will install. Installation is easy but not automatic.
4. On the Flex side, Adobe invested a lot in making sure the Flex developer has an easy process in developing an application for the browser or for AIR. Flex Builder also has a rich coding tool around code refactoring, enhanced debugging, and a memory analysis tool built in.
5. Elements that are designed in Creative Suite flow smoothly into a Flex application. When a designer creates skins in Photoshop, the skins go right into Flex Builder.
6. Adobe has integrated some new code generation wizards that are in ColdFusion 8 into Flex 3. They have enhanced the wizards and removed some bugs, as well as updated them to work on ColdFusion 8, PHP and ASP.NET. "We are looking to make the integration between client technology and server technology more configurable," said Costa.
7. AIR allows for cross-platform executables, which enables developers to create applications that run on Windows, Mac OSX, and soon Linux. Developers are assured that a single .AIR file will run on virtually any machine on the market, without the normal re-compiles that are expected with cross-platform applications.

Costa ended our interview with the positive note that the number of ColdFusion developers that have picked up Flex is tremendous. He said that the prerelease tour that Adobe did with user groups got tremendous interest from the ColdFusion community. So apparently ColdFusion developers are in the forefront of the Rich Internet Application revolution.

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