Adobe Flex Builder 3

Adobe Flex Builder 3 software is a highly productive Eclipse based development tool enabling intelligent coding, interactive step-through debugging, and visual design of the user interface layout, appearance, and behavior of rich Internet applications (RIAs).

Adobe Flex Builder 3 accelerates Flex application development. It is an Eclipse based development tool enabling intelligent coding, interactive step-through debugging, and visual design of the user interface layout, appearance, and behavior of RIAs. Flex Builder 3 includes the complete Flex framework, including compilers, a component library, and debuggers.

Flex Overview
Flex is a free, open source framework for building highly interactive, expressive web applications that deploy consistently on all major browsers, desktops and operating systems. It provides a modern, standards-based language and programming model that supports common design patterns. MXML, a declarative XML-based language, is used to describe UI layout and behaviors, and ActionScript 3, a powerful OO programming language is used to create client logic. Flex also includes a rich component library with over 100 proven, extensible UI components for creating RIAs, as well as an interactive Flex application debugger.

RIAs created with Flex can run in the browser using Adobe Flash Player software or on the desktop on Adobe AIR, the cross-operating system runtime. This enables Flex applications to run consistently across all major browsers and on the desktop. And using AIR, Flex applications can now access local data and system resources on the desktop. Both Flash Player and Adobe AIR are available as a free download on Adobe.com.

KEY FEATURES:

• Powerful coding tools - Adobe Flex Builder 3 is a powerful Eclipse based IDE that includes editors for MXML, ActionScript, and CSS, as well as syntax coloring, statement completion, code collapse, interactive step-through debugging, and more.
• Rich visual layout (Enhanced in Flex Builder 3) - Visually design and preview user interface layout, appearance, and behavior using a rich library of built-in components. Extend the built-in components or create new ones as needed.
  New in Flex Builder 3 -- Interactively set and preview CSS values on any of your components in Flex Builder Design view.

• Interactive data visualization (Enhanced in Flex Builder 3) (Professional edition only) - Create data dashboards and interactive data analysis by simply dragging and dropping a chart type and linking it to a data source using the Flex charting library. Use the powerful new Advanced Datagrid to enable users to explore complex data.
  New in Flex Builder 3 -- Use the powerful new Advanced Datagrid to enable users to explore complex data. Charts have also been enhanced with new interaction support, a drawing API, and support for multiple axes.

• Skinning and styling (Enhanced in Flex Builder 3) - Customize the appearance of an application using CSS and graphical property editors. Quickly set the most commonly used properties and preview the results in Design view.
  New in Flex Builder 3 -- Design view has also been enhanced to support rendering of skins and styles, allowing designers and developers to update properties and visualize how they affect each skin without needing to rebuild the application.

• Integration with Adobe Creative Suite 3 (New in Flex Builder 3) - New Flex Skin Design Extensions for Adobe Flash, Illustrator, Photoshop, and Fireworks make it fast and easy to import ready-to-use creative assets from Adobe Creative Suite software directly into Flex Builder 3. Use the new Adobe Flex Component Kit for Flash CS3 Professional to create interactive, animated content in Flash that can then be exported as a Flex component.
• Code refactoring (New in Flex Builder 3) - The new Flex Builder 3 refactoring engine allows developers to quickly navigate through code or restructure code by renaming all references to a class, method, or variable.
• Native support for Adobe AIR (New in Flex Builder 3) - Flex Builder 3 provides the fastest way to create applications for the Adobe AIR runtime, including all the tools required to build, debug, package, and sign Adobe AIR applications. Adobe AIR lets you quickly develop RIAs for the desktop using the same skills and codebase you use to build RIAs for the browser.
• Powerful testing tools (New in Flex Builder 3) (Professional edition only) - The Flex Builder 3 memory and performance profilers enable developers to improve application performance by providing tools to monitor and analyze memory consumption and CPU cycles. Support for automated functional testing tools such as HP QuickTest Professional (formerly Mercury QuickTest Professional) is also now available in Flex Builder 3 Professional.
• Advanced data services (New in Flex Builder 3) - Invoke web services or request XML or other data via HTTP using a rich, built-in library of data access services. Use open source BlazeDS to easily connect applications to back-end services leveraging Flex Remoting and Messaging, providing, a binary, high-performance, HTTP-based data transport, plus real-time data push and pub/sub messaging.
• Flex 2 and 3 SDK support (New in Flex Builder 3) - Flex Builder 3 can create applications based on either the Flex 2 SDK or the Flex 3 SDK, enabling developers to leverage many of the great new Flex Builder 3 capabilities while maintaining Flex 2 applications.
• Improved project workflows (New in Flex Builder 3) - Use new Flex Builder 3 project wizards to support the most common back ends. New wizards make it fast and easy to get started, whether you're using PHP, ASP.NET, ColdFusion, Java. Workflow for developers using LiveCycle Data Services is improved as well. Lastly, improved project portability support enables developers to share projects and application settings more easily.
• Web service introspection (New in Flex Builder 3 - Flex Builder 3 can now retrieve a WSDL and generate ActionScript proxies to make calls and serialize/deserialize strongly typed objects. New code hinting is available for making web service calls and dealing with responses.

Adobe Flex Builder 3: Datasheet

Adobe Flex Builder 3: System Requirements

System Requirements:

FLEX BUILDER 3 FOR WINDOWS

• Intel Pentium 4 processor
• Microsoft Windows XP with Service Pack 2 or Windows Vista Home Premium
• 1GB of RAM (2GB recommended)
• 500MB of available hard-disk space (additional 500MB required for plug-in configuration)
• Sun JRE 1.4.2, Sun JRE 1.5 (included), IBM JRE 1.5, or Sun JRE 1.6
• Eclipse 3.2.2 or higher for plug-in configuration (Eclipse 3.3 recommended for Windows Vista)
• Adobe Flash Player 9 software *
• BEA Workshop 10.1
• IBM Rational Software Architect 7.0.0.3 (Eclipse 3.3 plug-in configuration only)

FLEX BUILDER 3 FOR MAC OS

• PowerPC G4 1.25GHz or Intel processor
• Mac OS X v10.4.7 -- 10.4.10 or v10.5
• 1GB of RAM (2 GB of RAM recommended)
• 500MB of available hard-disk space
• JRE 1.5 or JRE 1.6 from Apple
• Eclipse 3.2.2 (for plug-in configuration)
• Adobe Flash Player 9 software *

* New Adobe Flex Builder 3 projects create applications that require users to have Adobe Flash Player 9 (9.0.115.0). You can change this requirement to an earlier version of Flash Player 9 in the Flex Compiler section of your project's properties.

Adobe Flex Builder 3: System Requirements

Product information, specifications, and compatibility are for advisory purposes only, and is the buyers full responsibility to verify with the manufacturer prior to ordering.