Re: [flexcoders] Architecture question

[Paul Andrews]

----- Original Message ----- From: Jeremy Merritt To: flexcoders@yahoogroups.com Sent: Tuesday, August 29, 2006 10:16 PM Subject: [flexcoders] Architecture question Hi all, I would like some feedback from the group collective about the approach I'm thinking about taking to implementing an application using Flex for the UI. There is an existing desktop application and the goal of the new application is to be able to run the files created by the desktop app in a web browser.  We've already got the guts of the desktop app implemented as a web service -- now we need to add UI. So here is the question: the files output by the desktop app have XML that marks up the interface, complete with x and y coordinates.  What would work best? - To have a generic MXML file that uses ActionScript to parse the XML and create the components needed for the UI on the fly and lay them out according to the XML markup - or- - To create a conversion utility that creates an MXML file based on the desktop app's XML and then invoke the Flex compiler to output an SWF.  This approach would require me to redistribute the Flex SDK, which seems to be okay according to the license. I'm leaning toward the latter option as it puts the burden of figuring out the layout of the UI and all that jazz on the conversion utility.  The resultant SWF would then just communicate with the web service and run the app. What are your thoughts on this?   Well, I'm really curious as to what it is that needs a dynamic interface to be built like this.   My first thought was (as you suggest) to go with an xml transformation to mxml if the UI doesn't need to be rebuilt every single time, but I'm wary about what the user experience would be - there would be a delay in doing the transformation and then compiling then invoking a swf. There may be a better user experience by running a swf, then reading and interpreting the xml. In the second situation, there's no recompile and transformation overhead.   Essentially your application is reading an xml configuration file from the web service, then configuring itself.   Paul Thanks, Jeremy __._,_.___ -- Flexcoders Mailing List FAQ: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/flexcoders/files/flexcodersFAQ.txt Search Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/flexcoders%40yahoogroups.com SPONSORED LINKS Web site design development Computer software development Software design and development Macromedia flex Software development best practice YAHOO! GROUPS LINKS  Visit your group "flexcoders" on the web.    To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:  [EMAIL PROTECTED]    Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service. __,_._,___