Flex Development Changes The Users' Experience Of The Web Significantly

By Author: Chris Cimpton
Total Articles: 4
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Flex development is a newly introduced term in the web development arena and is used for developing web based interactive applications with rich media content. Flex application development utilizes the powerful Adobe flex platform which in turn is based on the mighty Flash technology. Flex is a n RIA development framework with comprehensive application advancement features that implement multimedia and engaging rich content in the web application. Flex application development is done for the development and delivery of RIAs (Rich Internet Applications) within the enterprise and also throughout the web to enhance the user interactivity with the Internet and hence improve their experiences. Web applications built on the Flex architecture are cross-platform and hence are compatible on all major browsers, systems, and even devices. Flex applications deploy impressive and high-performance user experience. To start with Flex development the developer first needs to download and install the Flex SDK that has the class libraries for Flex application development.

The days of static websites are long gone. Today the users expect ...
... more from the Internet and the web applications. For this reason the web applications evolved drastically to provide the users enthralling experiences by offering animations, graphics, multimedia and interactive features and functionality. RIA development wave spread like wild fire and grew in popularity. To increase visiting traffic and hence productivity the businesses are going for RIA development. Flex development helps the developers to build fully functional RIAs with lesser coding and faster turnaround times. A typical Flex application is a client-server application that runs on the client browser and synchronizes data with the server database via server-side scripting technologies like .NET, PHP, ColdFusion, Perl, and Ruby. For the client-side intelligence the developers implement MXML markup language with ActionScript language for Flex application development.

Flex grew in popularity as it is based on the famous Flash architecture and hence to run a Flex application all that is required is a lightweight plug-in to be installed on the client browser which utilizes the Flash Player to run the RIA. Flash Player is already installed on millions of computers hence the Flex application readily runs on majority of Internet browsers. There are few other RIA development technologies like Microsoft Silverlight and AJAX, but due as Silverlight is relatively new, it is not so popular as the Flash technology, and AJAX codes are heavy on the runtime, hence developers prefer Flex development over other options. Apart from this, there are various benefits that are rendered for both end-users and developers such as:

1.Flex application development involves an extensive library for visual components hence the RIA is built with minimal codes in record development times.

2.Flex applications and components are reusable thus increasing their reliability and solution scalability.

3.High performance data synchronization engine ensures easy application integration with the database server.

4.Unparalleled interactivity with audio and video streaming facilities.

A dynamic website consists of multiple and individual web applications functioning together. Flex components can easily be implemented during the development of a dynamic website for best user experiences. Flex application development can help enterprises in building their ecommerce websites and online shopping carts with multiple payment gateways. Flex development is also useful in creating specific functional apps such as a CMS, business analysis, games, personal entertainment, and so on. Flex applications are SEO friendly and help the webmasters to deploy RIAs and not fuss over search engine rankings.

Flex application development involves creating a chic RIA with seamless navigation and fast processing. The client-server application synchronizes data rapidly so that the user gets a feeling of no refresh when submitting a query. Flex development puts all the right things together in delivering a fully functional and powerful RIA that ensures improved business productivity and add to the success of the enterprise in real time.