Flex, Adobe AIR, and PHP: the beginning of a beautiful friendship
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Flex, Adobe AIR, and PHP: the beginning of a beautiful friendship
Mihai Corlan Platform Evangelist, Adobe
PHP GeekMeet 2009, Cluj
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About me
• Platform Evangelist, member of the Adobe’s European team
• Used to be a Flex Builder engineer (Java Desktop SWT, Eclipse
Platform)
• Used to be a web developer (PHP, ColdFusion, DHTML, JS, MySQL,
Sybase…)
• ~9 years experience with web related technologies
• I write articles, I do presentations, and I code
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Today’s Agenda
• What is RIA and why RIA is a good thing
• What is Flex
• What is Adobe AIR
• Why AIR applications?
• Flex/AIR and PHP
• Q & A
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What matters?
Experience Matters!
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What matters?
USER Experience Matters!
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A shoe story…
More than 2.000 years experience in producing shoes.
We can produce them really cheap.
20 Euro a pair, maybe?
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A shoe story…
More than 2.000 years experience in producing shoes.
We can produce them really cheap.
20 Euro a pair, maybe?
Wrong! Because of better user experience, people women are willing to pay 100+ euro!
Better design, limited edition = better user experience = greater value
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What is RIA?
MAINFRAME
RE
AC
H
Local
Global
RICH Text UI Integrated media GUI
CLIENT/SERVER
WEB APPLICATIONS
2004
1992
1998
RICH INTERNET APPLICATIONS
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Demos time!
Let’s see what it can be done with the Flash Platform!
Flash Player
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What is Flex?
Flex is just another way to create a Flash application
Flash Player
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What is Flex?
Flex SDK 2 languages
MXML ActionScript 3
Compilers Rich Component Library Debuggers
Flex SDK
Flex Class Library
MXML ActionScript
Debuggers
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What is Flex?
Flex SDK 2 languages
MXML ActionScript 3
Compilers Rich Component Library Debuggers
Flex Builder IDE Eclipse Plug-in or turn-key install
Accelerates Design and Development
Design view and code view
Flex Builder IDE
Flex SDK
Flex Class Library
MXML ActionScript
Debuggers
Flash Player
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What is Flex?
Flex SDK 2 languages
MXML ActionScript 3
Compilers Rich Component Library Debuggers
Flex Builder IDE Eclipse Plug-in or turn-key install
Accelerates Design and Development
Design view and code view
Flex Builder IDE
Flex SDK
Flex Class Library
MXML ActionScript
Debuggers
Compile
Browser
Flash Player
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What is AIR?
Adobe® AIR™ lets developers use their existing web development skills in HTML,
AJAX, Flash and Flex to build and deploy rich Internet applications to the desktop
on Windows, Mac or Linux.
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Adobe AIR Application Stack
Cross-OS Application
Integrated Rendering
Integrated DOMs & Scripting
Flash
Flex ActionScript XML Audio Video
HTML
HTML
HTML JavaScript XML CSS
Flash
Adobe AIR APIs
Mac, Windows, Linux & Device OS
File System Access
Network Detection Notifications Application
Update Drag and Drop
Local Database ...
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RIAs can be limited by the browser
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#1 – No offline access
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#2 – Constrained within the browser chrome
Browser chrome & application chrome con"ict
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#3 – Common desktop interactions not possible
Drag & drop not possible
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#4 – Local system access limited
File interaction restricted by browser sandbox
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#5 – Updates only delivered when browser is open
Alerts only visible when browser open
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Why RIAs on the desktop
Persistent connection
Desktop functionality Data access Efficient development
Branded experiences
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AIR capabilities
• Native window types (normal, utility, lightweight)
• Support for multiple monitors
• Native Menu support (App, window, dock, system tray, context)
• Full access to the local #le system (read/create/delete)
• Encrypted Local Storage
• Local SQLite databases, including encrypted
• Drag and Drop
• Clipboard (read/write)
• Network activity monitor
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Communication between Flex and PHP server
“I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship!”
Flex & AIR on the client, PHP on the server.
Web browser FLEX Apps
Desktop AIR Apps
Server PHP
REST Services
Web Services
Remoting
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Are there any Flex/AIR apps with PHP out there?
AIR & Flex apps with PHP backend:
http://corlan.org/"exair-and-php-apps/
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What tools to use?
For Flex and PHP and Eclipse based solution:
• Flex Builder + PDT
• Flex Builder + Zend Studio
Advantages:
• You can create combined Flex and PHP or AIR and PHP projects
• That helps you with deploying, and debugging
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Debugging
Debugging Flex applications:
1. Use a log function on the server, and save the var_dump of the PHP
variables in a "at #le
2. Use Charles proxy sniffer, you can inspect the traffic between client
and server
3. Use Flex Builder and Zend Studio debuggers
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How does remoting work?
MyClass {
getData() { … } saveData($myVO) {…}
}
Flex/AIR Client PHP Server AMF3
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How does remoting work?
RemoteObject
getData(); saveData(myVO);
MyClass {
getData() { … } saveData($myVO) {…}
}
Client calls MyClass->getData()
Flex/AIR Client PHP Server AMF3
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How does remoting work?
RemoteObject
getData(); saveData(myVO);
MyClass {
getData() { … } saveData($myVO) {…}
}
Client calls MyClass->getData()
Flex/AIR Client PHP Server
MyVO {
public $id; public $name;
}
MyVO {
public var id:int; public var name:String;
}
Automatic conversion between PHP and ActionScript class
AMF3
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How does remoting work?
RemoteObject
getData(); saveData(myVO);
MyClass {
getData() { … } saveData($myVO) {…}
}
Client calls MyClass->getData()
Flex/AIR Client PHP Server
MyVO {
public $id; public $name;
}
MyVO {
public var id:int; public var name:String;
}
Server sends an array of MyVO objects
Automatic conversion between PHP and ActionScript class
Client calls RemoteObject.saveData(myVO) MyClass->saveData($myVO)
AMF3
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REST vs. AMF?
http://www.jamesward.com/census/
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PHP and AMF
There are four libraries for doing remoting with PHP classes:
1. Zend AMF – part of the Zend Framework
2. AMFPHP
3. WebORB for PHP (remoting and data messaging – publisher/subscriber)
4. SabreAMF
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Thank you!
Download Flex Builder: http://www.adobe.com/go/flex_trial AIR: http://www.adobe.com/go/air AIR Adobe Developer Center: http://www.adobe.com/devnet/air/ Download Tour de Flex: http://flex.org/tour Learn Flex in one week: http://www.adobe.com/devnet/flex/videotraining/
Mihai Corlan
Blog: http://corlan.org
E-mail: mihai.corlan@adobe.com
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