Flex 3 Component Solutions: Build Amazing Interfaces with Flex Components (Paperback)

by Jack Herrington (Author)
Key Phrases: flow list, email name, following application code, Flex Builder, Google Maps, Advanced Flash Components (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

Flex has revolutionized the development of Rich Internet Applications, giving developers the framework necessary to easily create ever more powerful applications. Components form an essential part of this framework, and once you understand how to fully use them, your productivity and creativity will be taken to a whole new level. Flex 3 Component Solutions will show just what you can achieve with components and exactly how to achieve it.

You'll see just how simple it is to use components to create amazing interfaces for your applications be they media players, data visualizations, 3D graphics—the list is long. This book contains all you need to know to get the Finally, there'll be times when you'll want to or have no alternative but to create your own components. This book will show you how to do this for your own ends, or so you can contribute to the Flex component community by distributing them.

Flex 3 Component Solutions is a tour de force of components, and all of these components are demonstrated using real-world Flex code that you can use as starting points for your own applications. Take what you learn for this book, and then go out and create your own amazing interfaces quickly and easily: reuse, repurpose, redesign, and do it all faster and with greater quality control than you ever thought possible.

In this book you'll

• Discover amazing components that you can use in your applications right away
• Learn about how to build your own components
• Find the code needed to create compelling data visualizations using Flex
• Get lots of useful example ActionScript and MXML that you can use as templates for your own work
• Learn how to reskin your applications quickly

Summary of Contents

1. A Quick Introduction to Flex
2. Making States Rock
3. Getting Everything Set Up
4. Upgrading Your Containers
5. Handy New Control Types
6. Fun with Images
7. Audio and Video Components
8. 2D Graphing Components: Introducing Charting
9. 3D Graphing Components
10. Visualizing Time and Space
11. Interactive Mapping Controls
12. Introducing Hierarchal Data and Components
13. Network Graph Components
14. Cool Premade Skins
15. Building Your Own Components
16. Hacking into Data: A Flex Skunkworks

About the Author
Jack is a software engineer with over 25 years of experience who has written numerous articles including many on Flex and Rails. He was a member of the Flex Builder team at Macromedia. His first book, Code Generation In Action, used Ruby and was an inspiration to the author of Rails.

His blog can be found at jackherrington.com

Product Details

• Paperback: 432 pages
• Publisher: friends of ED; 1 edition (November 17, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1430215984
• ISBN-13: 978-1430215981
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 7.4 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #68,883 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars This book is about integrating components; NOT creating them., February 13, 2009

By	J. Dusbabek (USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

If you are looking for a book that showcases a bunch of existing Flex components (that aren't a part of the standard Flex framework) then get this book and enjoy it. The book is well written and organized, and Herrington does an excellent job covering a lot of really cool components that will have people who visit your site asking, 'Wow, how'd he do that?'

If you'd like to give a more in depth answer to that question than, "I just tied this component into my app" OR if you're looking for a book that deals more in how to create cool, advanced Flex components (like I was); then you might feel a tinge of disappointment. Chapter 15 is dedicated to this topic, but it will feel like child's play to anyone who has extended UIComponent.

To anyone who has played around with the "Tour de Flex" application (http://flex.org/tour), many of the examples will seem familiar. In fact, if you enjoyed this book you'll probably enjoy exploring Tour de Flex. Though there is a lot of overlap, each also showcases components that are not in the other.

Creating components and integrating components are two very distinct (though related) topics. Before deciding to get this book, you should know that it is definitely weighted more towards integrating existing components.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Perfect tool for Advanced Flex Development, January 31, 2009

By	Daniel D. Orlando "Dan Orlando" (Tempe, AZ USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This book is a resource more than anything for current Flex developers. I would not recommend this book to beginners, but STRONGLY recommend it if you have been coding in Flex and ActionScript 3 for a little while. Even if you are a beginner or intermediate, I would still consider getting this book and keeping on the shelf until you're ready for it. Prior to reading this book, there were a number of Flash-based AS3 components that I really wanted to use in Flex, but wasn't sure how to effectively port them over. This book shows you exactly WHERE to find the best of the best components out there, and then shows you HOW to use those components in Flex. Considering the lack of documentation for many of the valuable AS3 assets that can be found out there, this book is absolutely essential if you find yourself using components that are not included within the Flex framework.

Additionally, I like that this book shows you how to create your own Flex components in a loosely-coupled, object oriented design pattern that makes your components reusable. It also analyzes many of the pre-built example components in the book and shows you what specifically makes those components reusable, so you can implement the same techniques into your own code.

Bottom line - this book is worth far more than the price you pay for it if you are already a Flex developer.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars yet another great friendsofED publication ..., November 16, 2008

By	grantmichaels "grantmichaels" (sarasota, fl) - See all my reviews

This book was of immediate utility and I've noticed over time that I prefer the stylistic presentation of the friendsofED books relative to the other major programming text publishers. I do most of my reading about coding away from the computer, and perhaps this is why I 1) appreciate quality screenshots and/or helpful graphics, and 2) need a more conversational tone to the writing. If you find yourself falling asleep in O'Reilly books, I heartily recommend giving some of the friendsofED books a shot.

I received my copy a week ahead of their official release date (thanks Amazon), however this found friendsofED unprepared to provide the source code on their website. I sent the author an email, to which he responded that afternoon, and the source was made available on github that evening. Typing in Ruby is mildly annoying, but having to manually enter MXML tags would have wasted a great deal of a limited amount of time, so I'm particularly appreciative of the authors aid in providing the source/examples.

I have a pile of new Flex 3 books at the end of my desk as I'm trying to decide whether to develop in Flash or Flex, of which the latter is new to me, and this is the book that I'm using to test drive Flex at present. It's a great value and one I'm recommending w/ five stars.


grantmichaels