Hi,
Flex is more geared towards "applications" than Flash - not to say
you have to build applications with Flex and websites with Flash though.
Flex's interface is based around coding, but as a bonus, if you have
Adobe's Flex Builder rather than just the Flex SDK + Eclipse, you can
also use the drag and drop wysiwyg editor to start building application
interfaces very quickly.
Behind the scenes, there are lots of useful bits built in - data
binding is a hugely useful thing in Flex and the component set is a lot
"richer":
I am building an application at the moment with Flex and am
currently spiking some ideas which involve using a lot of data from the
server. I have found it very quick to get some ideas up and running
with minimal coding - just wiring up drag-n-drop, plus data handling to
display data - this is where it becomes nice, but I am also heavily
involved with a touch screen interface for a product we make that runs
out of Flash, admittedly it uses AS1 & 2 coding, but it's in the state
where it is quicker to add stuff the "Flash way" - I am looking at
porting this over to AS3, but am not decided whether to use Flash or
Flex yet. As it's touchscreen, lots of the "components" are very simple
& large because they are operated by fingers, so custom building /
skinning them is required.
Saying this, I have built a CDROM Flash based App & couple of
websites using Flex - skinned them with the Flash IDE + Flex components
FLA. With the websites, I did create my own mini-framework which
basically meant I could change the skin and the XML configuration and
the position of screens to build the sites much quicker.
Needless to say, you can build stuff in Flash it just depends on
what your approach is - coding / visual and also how willing you are to
spend a lot of time learning about the other side visual / coding... I
am stuck somewhere to the coding side of centre, but use Flex & Flash
for different things and prefer neither (although I use Flash Develop
for coding Flash rather than the IDE because the Flash IDE sucks for coding)
It's totally up to you - I recommend playing with Flex if you have
the time and inclination and don't mind messing with (M)XML / Script.
Glen
Lehr, Ross (N-SGIS) wrote:
I guess this is somewhat off topic, but I'm new to the whole Flex thing.
What are some of the reasons one would build something in Flex instead
of Flash? Is it just a preference thing, or are there real technical
reasons one should build a particular app in Flex?
Thanks
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Glen Pike
01326 218440
www.glenpike.co.uk <http://www.glenpike.co.uk>
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