Adobe Broadens the Appeal of RIA Development with Flash Builder 4

fact sheet

Vendor: Adobe Systems Incorporated (www.adobe.com/)

Vendor's Information:
About Adobe Flex
About Adobe

Adobe's Eclipse-based development tool that helps developers create rich Internet applications (RIAs) and content is back with a new name and new features. Adobe Flash Builder 4, part of the Adobe Flash Platform and the application formerly known as Flex Builder, will help developers bring rich content and applications to projects that didn't use rich media in the past. It will also allow developers working in languages that aren't usually associated with rich media, such as PHP and Java, to easily create visually appealing applications that are easy to use.

The evolution of Flash Builder 4 follows industry application-development trends toward Web-based applications. As Web-based applications grow into enterprise applications more enterprise developers will need to create Web applications with usable interfaces that go above and beyond what HTML can provide. This trend toward graphical applications, whether run in the browser or on the desktop, also means collaboration with designers is more critical than ever.

Flash Builder 4 takes what Terry Ryan, a Flash platform evangelist at Adobe, calls a "three-pronged attack" to make it easier to develop RIAs for the enterprise. The new release aims to improve the data services tooling; make rich application and media development faster and easier; and make it easier for designers and developers to collaborate on projects.

RIA Development Made Easy
The improved data services tooling will appeal to developers working in languages like Java and PHP. Flash Builder 4 gives developers the ability to point at a service they want their application to consume, such as a REST, SOAP, Zend AMF, or BlazeDS service, and simply point at an endpoint. Flash Builder will wire up the service automatically, removing manual work for the developer. With drag-and-drop service wiring a developer can take a service that lists all of the items in a table, for example, drag the service onto a datagrid, and let Flash Builder do the work. It's easy, fast componentry, Ryan said, which will make it easier for developers using PHP and Java to bring backend data into a rich media application. It will also broaden the appeal of the Flash Builder IDE among RIA developers.

"This combination of being able to wire up without a lot of manual work is a definite competitive advantage," Ryan said.

Adobe Flash Builder 4 also has a number of improvements to help developers with troubleshooting and testing. The network monitor, which Ryan said was a commonly requested feature, makes it easy for developers to see what is happening when the client is requesting data from the server. PHP and Java developers, for example, might be building an application that requests XML data from the server. If the data isn't being sent to the application, the network monitor lets developers see exactly where the problem resides.

New built-in tooling for unit testing in Flash Builder 4 lets developers run tests in the IDE, which means faster, easier debugging. It will also help developers catch problems earlier in the development process. Ryan said this follows the movement in general of Web developers toward easier, more improved testing and development tools. Functionality to help with testing and development are old news in the Java world, Ryan said, but it's new for Web-centric technologies like PHP and Flex that came of age in the last couple of years.

"Developers were focused on learning how to code," Ryan said, "now they need to code correctly."

New designer-developer collaboration features come to Flash Builder 4 courtesy of integration with Adobe Flash Catalyst, a new product that lets designers create RIA user interfaces from artwork imported from the tools in Adobe Creative Suite. Flash Catalyst projects can be imported into Flash Builder 4, where developers can work on creating the application to fit the UI.

Design is an important part of RIAs, and it's more than just making an application look nice, Ryan said. Design makes RIAs more usable. An inventory application, for example, that tracks items in stock is easier to use when a green light turns red when the inventory level drops to a certain point. It helps users see a problem and react quickly. Flash Catalyst helps designers create these interfaces, while Flash Builder is the development end of the same application functionality.

"It's easy to write applications," Ryan said. "It's more of a challenge to write apps that people want to use."

Finally, the most obvious change to Flash Builder 4 is the new name. Adobe wanted to differentiate the IDE from Flex, which is a free, open source framework for developing RIAs. But the new name should also appeal to developers who want to create rich media and applications outside of the Flex framework.

This is particularly true for developers who are coding in straight ActionScript and don't want to use the Flex framework for their projects. The new name will make it clear that the Adobe Flash Builder 4 IDE has something for these developers. It's all part of broadening the appeal of RIAs.