Flex for php developers

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Building mobile and tablet applications in Flex and PHP with Flash Builder for PHPKevin Schroeder

Zend Technologies

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About Kevin

Past: Programming/Sys Admin

Current: Technology Evangelist/Author/Composer

@kpschrade

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Agenda

• The basics

• Creating a project

• Working with MXML

• Working with ActionScript

• Connecting to PHP

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The Basics

• What is Flash? A platform for building highly interactive web content

• What is AIR? A runtime of the Flash environment for the desktop

• What is ActionScript The natively supported programming language for building

more than just simple graphic animations

• What is Flex? An SDK for building Rich Internet Applications in

Flash/ActionScript

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Flash/Flex Projects

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Creating a project ( w/ PHP )

Connects the projects

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Flex Project Basics

• AIR projects will have an Application Descriptor file Defines

• Application Name

• Versioning

• Initialization settings– Width

– Height

– Visible

– Etc. etc. etc.

• Etc. etc. etc.

• Flex/web projects inherit this from the browser

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MXML

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MXML

• An XML-based UI markup language

• Describes UI elements Position

Data Bindings

Events

• Two primary component sets (for widgets) MX – the older brother (Flex 3)

Spark – the new hotness (Flex 4)• Most of what you need to do will be in Spark

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MXML Example

XML Namespace declaration for Spark Components

XML Namespace declaration for Flex (non-visual, generally)

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MXML – Adding a component

Choosing from a list of Spark Components

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MXML – Creating Flex Elements

Defining local data container

Defining local ActionScript container

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MXML – Binding Static Data

Declared a data source

Accessed the data source

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MXML - Events

Defining the event

Event callback

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MXML – Events (alternatively)

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ActionScript

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ActionScript

• ActionScript is what makes Flash interesting

• Strong Typing (optional)

• Object Oriented

• Embeddable in MXML or writable in standard class files

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Language Features

• Very similar syntax to Java

• Object Oriented

• Namespaced

• Variables defined with a var keyword

• Variable type definitions are done with a semi-colon

• Casting is done with an as keyword

• Event Driven - No threading

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Language Features

Variable Declaration

Type Declaration

NamespaceReturn Value Type

Variable Type Casting

Variable Type Checking

Event Based

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Remoting

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Action Message Format

• Protocol for serializing objects to/from a Flash player

• Supports strong typing of data

• Support in multiple languages

• Support for any binary transport that ActionScript supports

• Two versions AMF0

AMF3

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Zend_Amf

• A Zend Framework based component to facilitate connections to Flash

• Two mechanisms Direct Serializer

• Used for non-service endpoints (SMTP, Stomp, File System)

• Generally not what you will use

Zend_Amf_Server• Used for service-based endpoints

• Manages calls to service classes similar to MVC

• Generally what you will use

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Direct Serializer

Weird, but required

Create an object

Create the output stream

Create the serializer

Write the object

Get the output from the stream

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Reading the (PHP) serialized object

Not just for PHP!

Magic!

Regular binary data

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PHP Application

Building a Service Oriented Architecture

Service Class 1

Flash Application

Service Call 1

Service Call 3

Service Class 2Service Class 3Service Class 4

Gateway

HTTP

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A Simple Architecture

Services to expose

Document Root

Libraries and Value Objects*

*/services is not in the include_path, otherwise value objects would go there

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Integrating into your own application

• Define service classes

• Bootstrap your application

• Call Zend_Amf_Server

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Demo : Creating and binding a PHP endpoint(slides would mean endless screen shots that would result in… well… this:

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