Hey all,
Is anyone here using Flex with Rails?
Robert Dempsey
what are you looking to do with flex? I haven't started flex with rails but I use it with coldfusion.
John,
Thanks for the quick response. I am looking to build a complete UI in Flex and the backend in Rails. Any links you can provide are welcomed. Thanks for the point in the right direction.
Robert
Robert Dempsey <robertonrails@...> writes:
John,
Thanks for the quick response. I am looking to build a complete UI in Flex and the backend in Rails. Any links you can provide are welcomed. Thanks for the point in the right direction.
Robert
> what are you looking to do with flex? > I haven't started flex with rails but I use it with coldfusion. > > flex ruby on rails - Google Search > > > > > > Hey all, > > > Is anyone here using Flex with Rails? > > > Robert Dempsey > >http://www.techcfl.com > >http://www.railsforall.org
>
Hi Robert,
yes, I am about to build a an app with these components (Flex and Rails)
and the first experiences are good 
It's easy to combine them with Rails restful features and with Flex HTTPRequest
and the events.
Seems to me a prefect combination because you can do much more on the GUI side.
Best regards Chris
Yeah you just pass XML back and forth. I haven't built flex stuff myself but I've done a bit of work building Ruby on Rails backends for Flex apps. It's dead simple.
Cam
This is little of the main issue here but a little tip from experience regarding the data flow between Flex and server side. We develop a Flex client that is very extensive on data consumption. Our experience is that among all tested protocols the JSON is the fastest one. The Xml is OK but transformation from it to Flex objects is better if you use JSON. We have our server side in C#, Php and naturally in Rails.
Hi Robert,
yes I am
It's straight forward and with Flex as GUI ist really easy to have a
RichInternetApplication
with features that DHTML/JavaScript simply can not achieve.
Best regards Chris
If you haven't already found it, there is the Google group http://groups.google.com/group/adobe-rubyonrails-ria-sdk
The blog http://flexonrails.net/ has some good info too.
Good luck.
and then to take it one step farther. . .
http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/air/ "Adobe(r) AIR(tm), formerly code-named Apollo, is a cross-operating system runtime that allows developers to use their existing web development skills to build and deploy rich Internet applications to the desktop."
John
Thank you all for your help. I have visited all provided links, and have been looking into AIR as well. I have found a great (and inexpensive) PDF as well. Here is the link to it (http:// www.flexiblerails.com/). Thanks again.
Robert Dempsey
There’s also a pretty nice plugin for Rails - WebOrb… does a lot of the translation. I actually worked with one of the developers on a project last and he’s very cool. http://www.themidnightcoders.com/weborb/rubyonrails/index.htm
Thanks Brian. I hae seen WebOrb before - it looked pricey for commercial applications.
- Robert
Yeah… but there’s an open-source version, at least there was last time I checked,
Do you have a link. That would rock.
Also, when receiving XML from a RESTful Rails controller, is there a certain format that Flex expects? I am having issues and Rails is returning the proper XML, however I am not sure that Flex is getting it properly formatted. Any help would be great. Thanks.
Robert
Hi Robert,
Look at flexonrails.net for WebORB articles, and at http://www.themidnightcoders.com/weborb/rubyonrails/index.htm.
-Peter
Is WebORB a "better" way to go than accessing Rails via REST?
- Robert
It is different.
Whether it is "better" depends on your requirements. REST lets you support traditional HTML views (and HTML + AJAX) with the same Rails controllers that talk to Flex (typically with XML). Note, however, that the Flex + RESTful Rails combination is not tied to XML: you can also use JSON (see http://www.mikechambers.com/blog/2006/03/28/tutorial-using-json-with-flex-2-and-actionscript-3 for details). In my Flexible Rails book [www.flexiblerails.com] I am only using XML for now with RESTful controllers, but I am considering adding an iteration which replaces the XML with JSON, just to show the difference. Furthermore, it should be fairly straightforward to implement support for YAML as well.
WebORB uses AMF, which is a binary protocol. There are pros and cons to this. Also, WebORB is not MIT-licensed [like Rails] or LGPL-licensed [like JBoss]--it is currently available under two licenses: a commercial license and the GPL. Whether you need a commercial license or can use the GPL version depends on what you are doing. The GPL is not the same thing as the LGPL. I'm not a lawyer, so I won't comment further.
-Peter
Thanks all. So far, Peter's book is rockin the house with Flex + Rails. Now I just need some more Flex training and I am off to the races.
Robert Dempsey
Nice! Thanks.
