Roo Flex add-on is ALIVE!

It's always good to ask.  The Roo Flex add-on had been incompatible with Roo 1.1.0, and I've been working on the rich web chapter.  I had checked in with Jeremy Grelle, the lead on the Spring Flex Integration framework, and he let me know that he got everything going again with a recent snapshot.

If you'd like to play with the Roo Flex integration libraries before they come out in mid-December, here's what you need to do:

Download it!

Download the latest snapshot jar for the add-on here (can't guarantee that it will work the same way for you, but the one 11/20 worked fine for me).

Install the JAR

Put the add-on JAR in the roo-1.1.0/bundle directory

Install the snapshot repository

Edit your project's <repositories> section and add:

  spring-snapshot
  Spring Portfolio Snapshot Repository
  http://maven.springframework.org/snapshot
  
    false
  
  
    true
  

You have to do this for now, because the Blaze DS 4.0 integration libraries aren't checked in to a final repository.

Install it in your project

Now, just use the flex setup command to install the Flex scaffolding engine. When you want to build a scaffold, experiment with the flex remoting command to generate a scaffold View class for your Scaffold, such as:

flex remoting all --package ~.model

Running it

Just use mvn package jetty:run-exploded to kick off your application (Tomcat is fine but I am partial to Jetty for embedded maven runs). When the server starts, make sure to hit http://localhost:8080/appname/appname_scaffold.html to view your scaffolded UI.

Great Flex Spring/BlazeDS Samples by Christophe Coenrets

Every once in a while you run across something amazing. Christophe Coenrets has put together some Spring and BlazeDS (that's the Adobe Open-Source remoting technology) integration samples, based on the Spring/BlazeDS API.

It comes as projects + a running Tomcat instance, complete with data. If you are at all interested in using the Flex RIA with your Spring Applications, this is one of two projects to pay close attention to. The other is the Grails framework, where you should be able to wire this API to Flex (the current Flex plugin was a proof-of-concept, but I think work is continuing in this area).

While not perfect, Flex is a great client-side tool.  I do remember many years spent at the dawn of client-server with a tool called PowerBuilder in days where we didn't care about super-complicated frameworks.  It just worked.  Spending some time with Flex makes me yearn for the days where the Client and the Server were different technologies that both did what they did well.  Maybe we're at the beginning of a new movement away from ugly browser coding into smart, three-tiered applications.  Well, a guy has to dream, eh? 

Happy research!  Great job, Christophe!  Want to be a guest on the Chariot Tech Cast? 

Here is the link:

New Spring/BlazeDS Integration Test Drive : Christophe Coenraets
Technorati Tags: spring, flex, integration

New Podcast Episode online - Interview with James Ward

We interviewed James Ward from Adobe Systems, a Flex evangelist and Java developer. We talked about a wide range of topics. Listen to the podcast episode here or subscribe to the podcast via iTunes or RSS. This one went very well, and I hope you enjoy it.

Show notes pages are available at http://www.chariotsolutions.com/podcasts/techcast/shownotes.