Four new Flex 2 Quick Starts are now live on the Adobe Developer Center. They are:
- Building components in MXML
- Building components in ActionScript
- Building components using code behind
- Deploying components
My Quick Start on Building components using code behind is especially worth a read as the Flex documentation currently does not include any information on how to use this important workflow. Those of you who already use the Arp framework to develop your Flash, Flex 1.5 and Flex 2 applications will be familiar with the workflow already. Code behind will also be familiar to users coming from Visual Studio.
The current implementation of code behind in Flex 2 is still somewhat barebones (it was added in Beta 3) and has certain limitations (for example, you can only declare components in your MXML as public in your code behind class) but it nevertheless opens the way for a more robust implementation in the future. Hopefully one that will utilize partial classes.
The New Flex 2 Quick Starts: Building and deploying components article by Aral Balkan, unless otherwise expressly stated, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 2.0 UK: England License.
Good timing! We’re having a discussion about code and layout separation and code behind development on one of my blog posts right now.
Thanks for the great artcile man, i had been looking for this.
[...] I read great articles today, written by Aral Balkan that shows once again how easy it is to work with the Flex framework. In these artciles, Aral explain how you can create and deploy your own “custom” but especially reusable components. If you’ve never tried to create you first mxml component, i suggest you to have fun reading this right now . You’ll find the links to these 4 articles in Aral’s post. August 15, 2006 | In Programming | [...]
So glad to hear that you guys are finding them useful :)
Flex Quick Starts: Building custom components…
Aral Balkan escribe una serie de tutoriales básicos sobre creación de componentes con Flex2. Desde la creación y utilización con MXML y AS hasta el empaquetado a SWC. Enlace a los tutoriales: * Building components in MXML * Building components……
What about application states and transitions with code behind workflow?
Hi Olegs,
It’s the same workflow when using transitions and application states. Depending on how much of a purist you are, you may see difining transitions and application states in MXML as ugly (if you view the MXML as purely being for the definition of the UI.) Even if you do, however, you can easily define them in ActionScript in Flex 2. Personally, in Flex 2, I believe that if you are consistent (ie., if you always define your transitions, states, etc. in either MXML or ActionScript) then either method is fine.
Aral, apologies for the basic question, but what files do I need to download from the SVN repository to start with ARP?
Dear Aral,
thanks a bunch for the nice starting points towards Flex 2 and AS3. Concerning the ‘code behind’ method to inject life into components i ran across a funny thing. Flex always creates me two custom components for the supposably same class/mxml file. I dont get it ? where is my mistake ?
I specify the mxml root tag as the class name with the package of the class as the custom tag namespace and instantiate the the Component per actionscript inside the Application Container, actually pretty simple… dah :)
Inside the components panel I have two custom components named LoginView though… °°blub
What do I do wrong ?
Hi Amir,
I’m not sure I understand the problem. If you can you send me a simple Flex Builder project that isolates this issue, I’ll take a look at it.
Hi Aral,
my mistake, already found out what the problem was.
I was simply trying to add MXML Components dynamically with actionscript -> and that doesnt work at least not without building a full fletched AS3 component.
And then I found out about Runtime SharedLibraries …. :)
http://www.adobe.com/devnet/flex/articles/rsl_print.html
Thanx a bunch for your quick reply and your willingness to help :)
have a nice night
Amir
Hi, I am curious to know about how to place your components some where so that they will appear in the component panel of flex IDE for all projects. Do you have some idea?
The style of writing is very familiar to me. Have you written guest posts for other blogs?