The Test Drive Server includes:

1. An updated version of my 30 minutes Test drive for Java developers
2. A brand new Flex Data Management Services tutorial
3. Flex/Spring integration samples running “out-of-the-box”
4. Flex/Hibernate integration samples running “out-of-the-box”
5. Flex/JMS integration samples (JMS powered by ActiveMQ) running “out-of-the-box”
6. A new version of my Real Time Market Data application with advanced messaging features: Java API (no JMS in this version), subtopics, etc.
7. Collaboration Dashboard

Installation Instructions

1. Proceed to the Test Drive Server download page
2. Expand fds-tomcat.zip

   NOTE: The instructions in the documentation assume that you expand fds-tomcat in your root directory. You can expand fds-tomcat anywhere else. Just make sure you adjust the path in the samples and tutorial instructions accordingly.

3. Open install.htm in the fds-tomcat directory for information on running the Test Drive Server.

Disclaimer: The Test Drive Server is currently not an officially supported product. I’ll of course do my best to answer your questions, and your feedback is very much appreciated. It is intended to allow Java Developers to quickly evaluate or/and get started with Flex in a Java environment.

ERRATA: On page 4 in the tutorial PDF: “On the Java Settings page, specify fdms-tomcat/classes as the Default output folder, and click Finish”. The name of the folder is incorrect: it should read: Specify “fds-tomcat/classes” as the Default output folder (The screen shot is correct).

More Info

The Flex Test Drive Server includes the following products, frameworks, and libraries (All these products are configured to work together “out-of-the-box” when you install the Test Drive Server) :

• Tomcat 5.5.20
• Flex Data Services (FDS 2.0.1)
• JOTM (JTA implementation)

  The Flex Data Management Services leverage the Java Transaction API (JTA). Because
  Tomcat doesn’t provide a JTA implementation, the Test Drive Server includes JOTM (an open source implementation of the Java Transaction API). You don’t need JOTM if your application server implements the full Java EE stack.

• ActiveMQ (JMS implementation)

  The Flex Data Services integrate with JMS (see integration examples in the Test Drive Server). Because Tomcat doesn’t provide a JMS implementation, we use ActiveMQ (an open-source JMS provider) as part of this Test Drive Server. You don’t need ActiveMQ if your application server implements the full Java EE stack, or if your application doesn’t use JMS.

• Spring 2

  Flex integrates with the Spring framework through the Flex SpringFactory (see integration examples in the Test Drive Server). Spring 2 is part of the Flex Test Drive Server to demonstrate this Flex/Spring integration.

• Hibernate 3.2

  Flex integrates with the Hibernate through the Flex HibernateAssembler(see integration examples in the Test Drive Server). Hibernate is part of the Flex Test Drive Server to demonstrate this Flex/Hibernate integration.

• HSQLDB 1.8

  To allow you to run the tutorial “out-of-the-box” without setting up a database, the Test Drive server
  includes an HSQLDB database. HSQLDB is a lightweight Java RDBMS that is particularly well
  suited to run samples. hsqldb.jar (in [tomcat_root]\webapps\ROOT\WEB-INF\lib) includes both
  the RDBMS engine and the JDBC driver. The HSQLDB database server is automatically started as part of the Tomcat startup process.