Flex Test Drive Server for Java Developers (Tomcat-based)
I have been working on a Tomcat-based “Flex Test Drive Server”. The Test Drive Server is a minimal and ready-to-use version of Tomcat (currently version 5.5.20) in which the Flex Data Services (version 2.0.1) WAR file has already been deployed and configured along with a variety of tutorials and sample applications. It allows you to get up and running integrating Flex with Java back-ends in a matter of minutes. Download fds-tomcat.zip, expand the file, and run…
The Test Drive Server includes:
- An updated version of my 30 minutes Test drive for Java developers
- A brand new Flex Data Management Services tutorial
- Flex/Spring integration samples running “out-of-the-box”
- Flex/Hibernate integration samples running “out-of-the-box”
- Flex/JMS integration samples (JMS powered by ActiveMQ) running “out-of-the-box”
- A new version of my Real Time Market Data application with advanced messaging features: Java API (no JMS in this version), subtopics, etc.
- Collaboration Dashboard
Using Flex with Spring
Many people in the Java community have recently been asking how to use Flex with the Spring framework, and more specifically, how to remotely invoke Spring beans methods from Flex applications.
Spring is one of the most popular Java frameworks. It is based on a lightweight component container that implements the Inversion of Control (IoC) pattern. Using an IoC container, components don’t instantiate or even look up their dependencies (the objects they work with). The container is responsible for injecting those dependencies when it creates the components (hence the term “Dependency Injection” also used to describe this pattern). The result is looser coupling between components. The Spring IoC container has proven to be a solid foundation for building robust enterprise applications.
The Flex and Spring integration process is actually very straightforward. Based on the interest in combining these technologies, I wrote a document providing background information, configuration information, and three examples with source code.
You can read the “Using Flex with Spring” document here.
UPDATE (1/12/2007): I put together a Tomcat-based Test Drive Server that includes these samples running out-of-the box. Read this post for more info.
