Pro Flex on Spring (eBook)

Chris Giametta is the owner and lead architect for AppFoundation Technology Group, Inc. (www.appfoundation.com), specializing in Flex and open source J2EE technologies. He has been involved with Flex since spring 2004, before the release of Flex 1.5. He used Flex and Spring together to set a solid framework to deliver Flex applications to clients in retail, procurement, and web-based projects. Outside of work, Chris enjoys golfing, sporting events, and most importantly, raising his two children, Kaitlyn and Cole, with his wife, Kristi.

Contents at a Glance 5
Contents 6
About the Author 13
About the Technical Reviewer 14
Acknowledgments 15
Introduction 16
Who This Book Is For 16
How This Book Is Structured 16
Downloading the Code 18
Contacting the Author 18
Rich Internet Applications with Flex and Spring 19
What Are Rich Internet Applications? 19
Introducing Adobe Flex 24
Introducing the Spring Framework 28
The Marriage of Flex and Spring 30
Summary 31
Project Planning for Flex and Spring 32
Staffing a Flex on Spring Project 32
Defining the Technology Stack 33
Planning the AF – Client Manager Project 34
Summary 60
The Tools for the Job 61
Flex and Spring Tool Set 61
Building Flex SDK Applications with Ant 62
Eclipse IDE 65
Setting Up Your Project Directory Structure 69
Summary 78
Introduction to Flex Applications 79
Introducing MXML and ActionScript 79
Handling Data in Flex 83
Creating Custom Components with ActionScript 94
Using Flex Libraries 108
Summary 111
Introduction to Spring 112
Spring Bean Wiring 112
Spring MVC 115
Spring Factories 125
Testing with Spring 132
Summary 136
Flex and Spring Integration Architecture 137
Transport Architecture 137
The Three Flex Communication Protocols 138
Flex in the Enterprise 150
Using Flex RPC RemoteObject 151
Summary 170
Architecting the View: Cairngorm and PureMVC 171
Using PureMVC 171
Using Cairngorm 193
Summary 214
Data Persistence 216
Spring Database Transaction Management 216
Setting Up for Data Persistence 224
Using JDBC 230
Using iBATIS 234
Using Hibernate 3 with Annotations 243
Summary 253
Security 254
Flash Player Security 254
Flex Security 258
Authentication and Authorization for Flex with Spring Security 269
Summary 279
Flex, Spring, Cairngorm, Hibernate: Bringing It All Together 281
AF – Client Manager Project Definition 281
Development Projects: Flex, Flex Library, and Spring 290
Spring Configuration for Flex 295
Hibernate Configuration for Spring 298
Cairngorm Configuration for Flex 301
Summary 307
Building the Database 309
Database Design Overview 309
MySQL Database Overview 311
Hierarchy Storage 312
AF – Client Manager Database Schema Design 313
Summary 322
Building the Spring Services 323
Spring Architecture and Service Definition 323
Spring BlazeDS Integration Configuration 325
Spring Remote Services for Flex 325
DAO Implementation with Hibernate 3 346
Registration of Spring Beans 359
Summary 367
Building the Flex User Interface 368
Flex Architecture and Component Definition 368
Flex RemoteObject Configuration 384
Flex Component Construction Using Cairngorm 386
Skinning and Styling the Application 417
Touch In 425
Summary 426
Porting the Flex Application to AIR 427
What Is AIR? 427
Building AIR Applications with the Command Line 428
Using the Flex SDK to Create AIR Applications 431
Creating an AIR Project with Flex Builder 435
Moving Your Flex Code to AIR 437
Summary 443
Installing the RIA Tools Platform 444
Installing Apache Tomcat 444
Installing Eclipse 446
Installing MySQL and GUI Tools 447
Installing the Flex Builder Plug-In 449
Installing the Flex SDK 451
Installing Ant 451
Building Flex Applications with Ant 452
Index 454