What is Adobe Flex? Is it just Flash II?

Question

Question

Alright, I\'m confused by all the buzzwords and press release bingo going on.

• What is the relationship between flash and flex:
  • Rep

Answer 1

Flex is a development framework that compiles xml and actionscript into a SWF, which runs on a client machine accessing a website. It can also run as a desktop application using Adobe AIR. Flash uses a drawing canvas instead of xml. Compiled SWFs can be referred to as Flash, which adds to the confusion. You may find Flex similar to ASP.NET, which takes xml and c# (vb.net, etc) and compiles into a dll. Of course, ASP.NET runs on the web server.

If you are choosing between Flex and Flash for an application, consider whether the application will be based around data. If you want to make a pretty spreadsheet application, Flex would be the way to go. If you are creating a video game or some sort of presentation, you would probably want Flash.

Answer 2

Flex runs on Linux, too, while Flash doesn't.
Flex is kinda Flash CS 4 second edition.

Flex is less graphical, as it separates compiler and IDE, which allows for command line compilation (makefiles, large projects so to say) which allows for alternative IDE's to Flash.

Edit:
Flex lacks some classes that Flash CSX has (e.g. fl.controls), while Flash lacks some classes that Flex has (e.g. mx.controls or mx.alert).

All in all:
You can have your own Flash compiler for free by downloading Flex 4 SDK and FlashDevelop. But it is no substitute for Flash.
Flash produces much smaller files (e.g. Flash compiles a project to 100 kB while Flex is compiles the same project to 500kB). So Flash is for internet multimedia applications, while Flex is for desktop multimedia applications.

Answer 3

Part of the confusion is that "Flash" means multiple things. Flash can mean one of a multitude of applications, OR the general technology behind SWFs.

There's the Flash CS3 product that Adobe sells. This is generally targeted at designers and uses a Timeline-based approach to creating SWFs. Previously the Flash product was the only way to create SWFs, and SWFs generally were just used for animations and other visual effects not possible in a browser otherwise.

Then there's the Flash Player. This is the application/plugin used to run SWFs. SWFs can also be wrapped in a "Projector" which allows them to run as a standalone app, but that's not as common.

At some point (I don't know when) Flash started to be used for more interactive applications. The Flash product wasn't very well suited for kind of work, as it was designed to create animations. Recognizing this, Macromedia created Flex. Flex is another development environment for creating SWFs, but it targeted more at developers than designers. The latest version is Flex 3. The Flex SDK is freely available and includes a command line compiler, debugger, and the class libraries. Adobe also provides (for purchase) the Flex Builder app, an Eclipse-based IDE for creating SWFs using Flex. There are some free IDEs for using Flex, most notably FlashDevelop, though I don't know of any that provide a visual designer for MXML, the markup language used by Flex to define UIs, or a visual wrapper for the debugger.

If you're approaching Flash from a developer's perspective then you're going to want to use Flex. It's probably a lot closer to what you're used to dealing with, and seems to be the direction Adobe is pushing Flash in general.

Answer 4

Flex is basically a language that compiles down to a flash "movie" or "applet", that will run in the Adobe Flash player plugin.