Introduction to Flex Builder 2

Welcome to the world of Flex! In this series of articles, I want to introduce you to Flex and the Flex Builder 2 software tool. Flex is an alternative way to using Flash to create SWF files suitable. It targets Flash Player 9 and works with ActionScript 3.0, which is a revision of the ActionScript language.

For developers who are used to creating applications with Flash, Flex provides a different approach – one that takes a bit of getting used to but one that provides great benefits. In fact, Flex Builder is the equivalent of Visual Studio for .NET developers so if you’ve seen or used that approach, you’ll feel right at home with Flex Builder.

In the relatively short time that I’ve been working with Flex Builder (well compared with Flash at any rate), I’ve found it to be a great way to create applications. It speeds up my development process and provides me with lots of built in controls that are easy to configure with ActionScript 3.0. It took a little bit of time to get my head around the changes but now that I have, I am excited by the possibilities that Flex offers.

In this article, I want to start by introducing you to Flex. I’ll show you how to work with Flex Builder 2 and explore the differences between Flex and Flash. In the articles that follow, I’ll show you how to achieve some common tasks in Flex Builder and we’ll create a number of different types of Flex applications.

There is no code download for this article. Rather, it’s going to step you through the process of installing and getting started with Flex Builder. Just a word of warning, if you’ve used earlier versions of Flex, it’s probably best to treat this version as a brand new approach, rather than an extension of those versions.