Adobe Flex Builder 4.6 Extras

Adobe Flash Builder Extras includes:

1. Flash Catalyst CS 5.5 installer
2. ActionScript Code Coverage Plug-in for Adobe Flash Builder (Eclipse Plugin)

Note: The Adobe Flash Builder 4.6 Extras are not included in the Electronic Software Distribution (ESD) download. They need to be separately downloaded from the URL http://www.adobe.com/go/fb46_getextras

Preparing Adobe Flex Development Environment (Part 2), updated

Image by TuttleTree via Flickr

Download Adobe Flash Builder (its a pretty big download of around 300 MB, please feel free to read ahead while download is progressing)

- Flash Builder 4 is available for Windows and Macintosh platform.

- During installation you will be required to close your browser(s) so that the installer can upgrade your version of Flash Player to the debugger version so that you can use the full debugging capabilities built into Flash Builder.

You can also install Adobe Flash Builder as a plugin over an existing Eclipse installation, while doing so it is recommended that you edit the eclipse.ini file for your Eclipse instance, so that it includes the following settings:

-vmargs -Xms256m -Xmx512m -XX:MaxPermSize=256m -XX:PermSize=64m

Highlights of Adobe Flash Builder 4.5:

“Adobe Flash Builder 4.5 can be used to Build for Android™, BlackBerry® Tablet OS, and iOS mobile platforms using a common code base”.

• Based on an Eclipse™ Plaform
• Rapid development of expressive mobile, web, and desktop applications
• Support for ActionScript®
• Building applications using open source Flex framework. 
• Supports for mobile application development and testing. 
• Development of applications using common code base to build apps for Android™, BlackBerry® Tablet OS, and iOS mobile platforms while sharing code from web applications.

Tips

• You can install a copy of Flash Builder 4 standalone with Flex Builder 2 or 3 installations on the same machine, it will not interfere with each other.
• Workspaces created in Flex Builder 2 or Flex Builder 3 are not supported by Flash Builder 4.
• You can import existing Flex Builder projects in Flash Builder 4, but a project modified by Flash Builder 4 will no longer open in Flex Builder 3 or Flex Builder 2.

Related Articles

• Adobe updates Flash Builder, Flex; unveils LiveCycle-CQ integration (infoworld.com)

• Building Web & Mobile Applications for SAP Backend using Adobe Flex(practicalflex.blogspot.com)

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• New Features in Adobe Flash Builder™ 4.5 (codenamed "Burrito")(practicalflex.blogspot.com)

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• More Eclipse 3.5 and Flex Builder, for Linux(greylurk.com)

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• Improving Flash Builder Performance(dougr.net)

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• BlackBerry Tablet OS SDK for Adobe AIR - Beta 2 Release!(blogs.blackberry.com)

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• Adobe releases trio of Labs goodies for designers, developers(downloadsquad.com)

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• Flash Builder, Flex 4, and Flash Catalyst Betas Available(blogs.adobe.com)

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• How to install Apache Flex 4.8.0 SDK in Flash Builder(lucamezzalira.com)

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• Flash Builder 4.7 Beta now available!(blogs.adobe.com)

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Apache Flex Overview, updated

crazy with the books (Photo credit: leff)

What is Flex? 

Flex is a highly productive, free open source framework that provides enterprise-level components for Flash Platform for designing, building and maintaining expressive mobile, web and desktop applications that deploy consistently on all major devices, browsers, desktops, and operating systems.

Flex allows you to build web and mobile applications that share a common code base, reducing the time and cost of application creation and longer term maintenance.

Flex Overview

Adobe has donated the Flex SDK to Apache Software foundation. [Adobe Donating Flex to Open Source Foundation (infoq.com)]

• Flex 3 Getting Started - Animated Overview on Adobe Learning Resource 
• Flex 4 Getting Started - Getting Started page for Flex 4 (current release) on the Flex Developer Center.

What is Adobe Flash Builder ?

Adobe^® Flash^® Builder^™ 4.5 software (formerly Adobe Flex^® Builder^™) is an Eclipse^™ based development tool for rapidly building expressive applications for the following platforms:

1. mobile, 
2. web, and
3. desktop

using the following technologies:

1. ActionScript^® and MXML
2. the open source Flex framework. 

Adobe Flash Builder 4.5 introduces new support for mobile application development and testing that enables use of a common code base to build apps for the following platforms: 

1. Android^™,
2. BlackBerry^® Tablet OS, and
3. iOS mobile platforms 

while sharing code from web applications. It includes support for the following features: 

• intelligent coding, 
• interactive step-though debugging, 
• application profiling, and 
• visual design of the user interface layout.

Can I learn Apache Flex (previously Adobe Flex) ?

Below are the Prerequisites for learning Adobe Flex includes basic understanding of following topics:

• Basic understanding of any programming Language ( for e.g. C#, Java, C / C++ etc..)
• HTML (Hyper Text Markup Language)
• XML (eXtensible Markup Language)
• JSON (JavaScript Object Notation)
• CSS (Cascading Style Sheets)
• Exposure to any server side technology (like ColdFusion, Java Servlet/JavaServer Pages, PHP, .NET) is recommended but not necessary. 

Which languages does Flex Framework supports ?

A Flex application consists primarily of code written in two different languages

• ActionScript - a fully object oriented, strictly typed, ECMA Script language. It is is used for describing the event handlers and custom application logic.
• MXML - an XML based markup language. It is used to provide description of the appearance  and components that make up the application.

What is Flash Catalyst ?

An additional product Adobe® Flash® Catalyst™ (code-named Thermo)  a professional interaction design tool for designers to create complex RIA user interfaces and interactions by using a visual editor which will create Flex application code that the designer and developer can share. Adobe Flash Catalyst is a tool for rapidly creating user interfaces without coding.

Future of Flash Catalyst & Flash Builders

Following the decision of Flex moving to the Apache Foundation, that Flash Catalyst will be discontinued. Flash Builder will also have features the following features removed in future:

• Design View,
• Data Centric Development (DCD)
• and Flash Catalyst workflows. 

Adobe has stopped sales and development of Flash Catalyst tool, Adobe is now focusing mainly on creating tools for native applications using AIR and HTML5 for e.g. 

1. Adobe Muse (http://muse.adobe.com)
2. Adobe & HTML (http://html.adobe.com/)

As an alternate to Flash Catalyst it is recommended to use Adobe Creative Suite Master Collection. (refer http://www.adobe.com/in/products/flashcatalyst.html for details)

Further Reading:

• Future of Flash and Flex
• Life After Adobe Flash Builder(drdobbs.com) - Developing Flex with using Microsoft's Visual Studios IDE

Learning Resources:

• Flex 3 LiveDocs - Flex Help Documentation
• Tour de Flex - A desktop application for exploring Flex capabilities
• Flex Developer Center - collection of resources on flex
• flex.apache.org - Apache Flex website
• Flex Showcase - list of desktop and mobile applications written in Flex
• Flex Cookbook - collection of solution to common problems

Related articles:

• Talking about: Flex Gumbo (Flex 4) - new features (psyked.co.uk) - Flex 4 was codenamed Gumbo

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• FlexJS: Flex for HTML/JS/CSS(flexcloset.wordpress.com) - A next generation flex sdk that cross compiles MXML & ActionScript into HTML, JS and CSS.

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• Apache Flex 4.11 Released!(blogs.apache.org)

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• How is Flex Doing? Quick Start Guides and Tutorials(jetbrains.com)

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• Flash Platform Rundown - Week of October 27th, 2013(inflagrantedelicto.memoryspiral.com)

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• Alex's Flex Closet Lives On!(flexcloset.wordpress.com) - yet another blog about flex.

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• Thumbs Up for Apache Flex(robsondesign.com) - success story about migration from Adobe Flex 4.5.1 SDK to Apache Flex 4.10.1 SDK.

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• Flash Platform Rundown - Week of October 20th, 2013(inflagrantedelicto.memoryspiral.com)

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