Flash Builder goes Public Beta
Flash Builder 4 Beta and Flash Catalyst are available for download on Adobe Labs. There's little sense to repeat 'whats new' about Flash Builder 4 and Flex 4 - blogs will be bragging about it anyway. For starters, read Tim Buntel's post on Flash Builder 4 and Matt Chotin's post on new features in Flex 4 SDK. You may also read first-hand information about Flex 4 SDK from Adobe Wiki. Flash Catalyst is well-covered by video tutorials. These materials will help to quickly understand chemistry between Flash Builder and Flash Catalyst. I believe name Catalyst is capturing essence of this product. It speeds up magic process of animating static PSD design image into live being that is Flash application.
Briefly recap what I found most interesting in Flash Builder:
- Data Centered Development process - a workflow which allows developer to pick datasource, introspect it, create data model in application, generate or build UI manually around this model and finally bind model to UI. Process is made so easy, that for many applications there will be little or no line of custom code written to retrieve and store data from Flash application -- generated code will work just fine. If there's no server code yet to connect, Flash Builder can generate one for you - in Coldfusion or even PHP. Worth to mention that thanks to Adobe and Zend collaboration, Zend Framework is used for PHP server back-end code, leveraging Zend AMF support.
- Network monitor - now you may watch data flow right from Flash Builder, without kung-fu of browser plugins.
- New Package Explorer, improved code hints and overall interface improvement.
Language changes in Flex 4 are going independenly from Flash Builder, but as Flex 4 SDK is default in FB4, I will mention these new features briefly:
- New language elements and components cleverly distributed between 3 main namespaces:
- Two-way data binding - pretty self-explainable, but really poweful feature. Bind textbox to a variable, load variable from remote source and show data in textbox immediately. Change textbox, and variable will be updated too, and only one symbol (not even a line of code!) is needed to perform this: text="@{variable}"
- New state management mechanism. In Flex 4 you don't need to describe differencies between states, but rather describe what states components are used in (or not used).
- FXG - new declarative language for describing graphics. For many projects, using complex libraries like Degrafa may be an overkill. With FXG developer can describe skin for a component in simple terms, and also, use FXG for intercommunication with other tools, like Catalyst.
Developers may be interested mostly in programming, but it's not an accident that Adobe shipped Flash Catalyst with Flash Builder in public beta. Catalyst is great product that will fill the gap between designer and developer. Flex developer can create tables and forms very quickly, manipulate remote data with ease. But who said that business application UI should'nt be attractive ? But developers usually cannot produce design, and designers cannot produce code. Flash Catalyst builds the bridge, allowing designers to markup their PSD designs visually, add effects and actions. Developers then pick resulting FXG code and put into their Flex application. Win-win ! No doubt such chemistry will improve quality and lower development time, leaving clients absolutely happy with results.