Hi Kevin, When choosing the type of a Flex Builder project you need to create, you need to decide how your Flex client will be communicating with the server. If you plan to use remoting, data management or messaging, then the project needs to be created using Flex Data Services, and here's why: Both FDS and WebORB support and expose the concept of destination which encapsulates the server-side logic your client can invoke or connect to. There are three types of destinations: remoting, data management and messaging. Each type is configured in remoting-config.xml, data-management-config.xml or messaging-config.xml, respectively. When your Flex Builder project is created to use Flex Data Services, it will contain special configuration/compilation parameters instructing Flex Builder to load these configuration files from the server. As a result, your Flex application is aware of the destinations registered on the server.
To answer your question, I think it is a better practice to start a project with the type of client/server communication it will eventually use. Although it is possible to migrate from HttpService or WebService to RemoteObject in the middle of a project (and thus change the project type), I personally think it is an architectural type of decision and must be addressed before you even start coding. Hope this helps. Cheers, Mark --- In [email protected], Kevin Merritt <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > It's nice to have options, however, I am still continually confused > by which direction to go in terms of Data Services when designing my > applications. I have been an AMFPHP user for the past couple years > and have found it very useful and effective for what I need (the > newest beta looks great!). HOWEVER, the data sync & messaging > possibilities with FDS are something that I could really use in some > of my current project so I am very tempted to move in that > direction...once I have gotten a better hold on Flex & have the time > to learn Java. WebOrb PHP looks promising as well since it > ultimately plans to offer FDS type features. Keeping that in mind, > here are my questions: > > 1) Regardless of which technology I am going to use, should I always > set up my projects using Flex Data Services so that I have the option > to build that into the application down the road? If so, how to I > configure the Data Service Location wizard? (I notice that the > WebOrb set up has you start every new project using Flex Data > Service, but I don't think that is necessary with AMFPHP.) > > 2) How hard is it to add Flex Data Service to a project down the > road? I am developing my app using cairngorm so I am hoping this > will allow me to make these type of changes easier, however, I really > have no clue. > > My plan is too stick with AMFPHP for the time being, however, I just > want to make sure I am not headed down a path that will be hard to > change in the future should I want to integrate FDS. > > Thanks for the advice. Once I get this figured out I will happily > blog my progress to help answer these question for others. > > Thoroughly confused... > > - Kevin >
