David Deraedt

This post belongs to a four part series :
Part 1 Rich Internet Application Server Architecture Basics
Part 2 Main Means Of Communication Between Flex And The Application Server
Part 3 Designing the Flex application as a Model View Controller
Part 4 Using Architecture frameworks

As a follow up to Andrew Trice's article on Rich Internet Applications architecture, combined with the fact that since I discovered lovelycharts I can't help drawing diagrams for any reason, I have decided to share my own story about Flex architecture.

Note : you can download the Flex Builder's Project Archive at the bottom of this page

UPDATE : be sure to read Cliff Hall's comment at the end of this post !

I finally found some time to give a try to Cliff Hall's PureMVC framework. This piece of code seems to gain more and more popularity these days, some even declared it as the best Flex application framework currently available. So I thought it was definitely worth checking.

Update :  Today, managing the navigation is more likely to be done with a PresentationModel (click here for more details).

Just a quick post to tell you that I've just released a new version of FCG which now supports Java files as an input format for your Services and Value Objects. If you've already installed FCG, your application should update automatically. This seemed really essential to me since the vast majority of Flex Projects are made using either a PHP or J2EE application server. Remember that, using FCG, you can generate a project which uses different services at once, coming from different application servers (that is PHP and Java so far).

I finally could have a look at the code generated by the new crazedcoders tool. I was still enable to test it, as the sql file was not available, but the sample files provided are enough to make a first impression.

About the PHP code

As expected, the tool generates a DAO file for each VO. I wish it was a bit commented, to have a better understanding of it, as some methods weren't very legible (IMHO).

As mentionned in my previous post about Cairngorm code generators, I've decided to release a public preview version, along with a video, of FCG (Flex Cairngorm Code Generator), the tool I created for my Flex developments.

You can check it here. Please let me know what you think about it.

Updated on August, 25th 2008

This project is now officially discontinued.

Please read this entry for more infos.

When talking about application localization, we should distinct two kinds of data :

1. Remote data that come, say, from a database, is dynamic by nature, and should then be localized via your application server logic.
2. User Interface data, however, is very different. Most of the time, it is set statically during development. It is spread all over the application, making it quite difficult to treat as normal "business" data.

Flex 2 deals with application UI localisation via static BundleRessources. There are several limits to this approach.