Adobe Flex Builder 2

If there is one development environment that comes closest to making

applications with writing minimal amount of code, it is Adobe Flex Builder 2. To

top it, it's now available as Eclipse plug-in that makes it easier for Java

developers to play around with MXML and SWT like never before. We worked on a

trial version to see how good it is, here's what we found.

MXML applications



With MXML, the language used by Flex Builder you can easily drag and drop
components and add cold-fusion style expressions to their attributes to quickly

create application without much of coding.

Price: USD 499 for single user Meant For: Java/Web developers Key Specs: Uses MXML, allows inbuilt integration with Java, PHP, ColdFusion and AJAX, better SWT apps  Pros: Drag and drop building, easy to use expression based syntax Cons: None Contact: Adobe Systems, Noida E-mail: prsingh@adobe.com  SMS Buy 131290 to 6677

It took us about eight lines of code to add a web service component to our

application and that's not it you don't have to worry about server-side

binding of your code or explicitly handling client to server request

initiations. No other framework or language that we have covered recently

including AJAX allows such liberty of concentrating only on the rich client side

while building application for the web.

SWT-on the fly



It is not just its MXML capabilities that caught our attention even SWT
applications are more drawn than coded when it comes to Flex Builder

applications.

Also the Flex framework allows inbuilt integration with other languages such

as Java, PHP, ColdFusion and AJAX. This means you are not tied down to just one

option for your applications as a developer.

In conclusion



The development environment provides you a lot of features to play around with
code as freely as you can.

DotImage Imaging adds features like TWAIN scanning support and AJAX enabled image viewer for the Web to make your work as easy as dragging and dropping images

With the range of options it provides for client side and data handling, it

is without doubt a product worth considering for your RIA (rich Interface

Applications) needs.