Roger Voss
Posts: 27
Nickname: rogerv
Registered: Aug, 2005
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Re: JavaOne 2008, Day 1: Rich-Client Misconceptions
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Posted: May 11, 2008 9:54 AM
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Is Flex RIA only suitable for business application interfaces, or apps like Buzzword (a highly functional word processor)?
Often it's believed that a web RIA approach is perhaps not so optimal for content heavy web sites (the blogging and social web sites, etc).
However, there are two aspects of Flex that could be leveraged to integrate content and yield a more dynamic UI.
First is that a Flex app can be built like a portal. A Flex form can dynamically load other Flex forms in a nestable like manner. The sub forms loaded can be determined by logic that executes at runtime. The loadable modules can be built as totally standalone components. They can bind into the hosting portal environment using Flex properties, events, and declarative data binding features. So the coupling layer can be well abstracted so as to not be overly brittle.
Second, one can incorporate a popular iFrame Flex control into a Flex form, which, of course, the iFrame can be used to load HTML/JavaScript content. So highly dynamic web content can be integrated into the UI of a Flex RIA application.
Thirdly, Adobe AIR has WebKit HTML engine built-in, so an AIR app can also ready make use of HTML content in a integrated fashion.
Fourth, there are already mechanisms that can be hosted in Apache httpd and IIS that will compile Flex forms from source code on the fly. So some aspects of even the Flex RIA could be generated dynamically at runtime. Currently these mechanisms are intended for development phase purposes. The compilation is not considered fast enough for production sites. However, in time this will likely improve.
In the meantime, my preferred approach is Flex form modularization and Flex control iFrame for embedding HTML content.
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