Building RIAs in AstronomyDan Magee

UCO/Lick ObservatoryUniversity of California, Santa Cruz

What are Rich Internet Applications?“Rich Internet applications (RIAs) are Web applications that have the features and functionality of traditional desktop applications.” – Wikipedia

Richness

• Desktop metaphor • Extensible UI Libraries• Asynchronous Communication• Bitmap/Vector Graphics • Offline storage• Data visualization • Realtime messaging• Integrated A/V• In constant beta

RIA Characteristics

Building RIAs

Frameworks/APIs

• AJAX - Dojo, Prototype, Rico, ... (JavaScript)• Adobe Flex (Flash-based, MXML, ActionScript)• OpenLaszlo (Flash-based, LZX, JavaScript)• Microsoft Silverlight (JavaScript, .NET)• Sun JavaFX (JavaFX Script)• Java (XUI, UltraLightClient,...)

Building RIAs

Frameworks/APIs

• AJAX - Prototype, JQuery, Rico, ... (JavaScript)• Adobe Flex (Flash-based, MXML, ActionScript)• OpenLaszlo (Flash-based, LZX, JavaScript)• Microsoft Silverlight (JavaScript, .NET)• Sun JavaFX (JavaFX Script)• Java (XUI, UltraLightClient,...)

Adobe Flex 2.0

What is Flex?

Flex Builder IDEDesign View

Component Skinning

Code Hinting

Debugging

Flex

Flex SDKFlex Framework

‣Flex Class Libraries‣Components

‣Containers‣Layout Managers

‣Behaviors‣Effects

Flex Utilities ‣Compilation ‣Debugging

Programming Languages ‣ActionScript 3 ‣MXML

How Flex works ...

Flex SDK

MXML ActionScript

Flex Class Library

Flex Builder IDE

.swf

Flash Player

Browser

Web Server

XMLJSON

SOAP Web Services

Adobe Life CycleData Services

J2EE App Server

Compile

Existing Application Infrastructure

Data Data.swf

Flex Class Library

Media Components•Video, Audio, Streaming

UI Components•Datagrid, Tree, List, TileList, Horizontal List, ...•Tab, Accordion, Menu, ContextMenu, ...•RichText Editor, Sliders, ...•ToggleButtons, PopupButton, ...

Layout Managment•Panel, VBox, HBox, VDividebox, HDividebox, Form, Tile, Grid, ...•Constraint-based Layouts•View States

Charting•LineChart, ColumnChart, BarChart, PieChart, Bubble, ...

Expressiveness•Styling and Skinning•Effects, Transitions

Data•HTTPService, WebService, RemoteObject•E4X Data Binding•Validators•Formatters

NVO Spectrum Application

Demo

Adobe Flex 2.0

Why Flex?

• Free Flex 2.0 SDK (as in beer, 3.0 will be Open Source)• Flash 9 available on MacOS X, Linux, Windows, Solaris• Extensive documentation (online or through IDE)• Good community support (mailing lists, forums, blogs]• No browser issues• MXML for layout, ActionScript 3 for logic• Performance (see http://www.jamesward.org/census/)

www.astroflex.org