User control over Flex availability in...

Hi all,

New guy to this Flex development. Basic question, I hope.

Comparing Flex to JavaScript, can the user selectively disable Flex in the browser? It would seem a lot of headaches with JavaScript is dealing with this configurable option (I've historically avoided client side scripting because of this concern). I would assume the plugin could be removed and/or disabled? If so, is there an ''agreed to'' response under such a condition?

thanks!

Karl

User control over Flex availability in...

Hi

Well in the end a flex application ends up as a swf fie, the same as any other piece of flash content.?Therefore if the user does not have the flash pugin installed, or they have too old a version of the plugin (earlier than 9) then the flex app will not work.

Andrew

User control over Flex availability in...

Hi Andrew,

thanks for the quick response... so given this, I would guess that since there wouldn't be a viewer installed for the browser to handle the swf file, the user would be prompted to install it and if refused, would just fail to load.

Yea

When you launch a flex app the html template that holds the swf has a place in it that says 'Flash player required download' and 'Place alternative HTML content here' if no player is detected.

You can put alterative instrucation in here.

There are a few ways and an offical Adobe kit around for detecting flash player versions, and most of these use javascript.

The thing is I weigh it up when it comes to developing an app and Flex is my choice.?I like working on the flash platform.?I think the biggest bonus is that whatever you do in Flash / Flex its gonna work across all browsers on all platforms.?And now with AIR you can also deploy these as desktop apps across all platforms.

My biggest niggle with javascript, css etc, was that different browser seem to treat bits differently.?I end up doing hacks ansd workarounds, and usually for the sake of getting it to work in I.E.

Yea server side is your definite way rendering HTML to make sure everyone gets it.?However if your taking Rich Internet App, then thats not gonna provide the tools.?I;d say when it comes to client side code Flex is tops for me.?And one big thing is that Flash has been around for over 10 years and according to the stats installed on 98% on internet connected machines. Thats gotta be good.

Thats just my opinion, but if your client side coding, its Flex for me.?

Hey... thanks again.

Well I'm becoming more and more sold on the advantages of using Flex. It simply makes more sense that removing the issues involved with having to code around browser scripting interpretation/support differences is just one more expense I'd rather not have to deal with.

A company I'm interviewing with is looking to move to a GWT environment (from what I don't know) and I hope they haven't made their final decision on this yet.

~Karl

red lipstick