Discover how easy RIA development can be with this one-of-a-kind handbook from the Adobe Developer Library. Several clear, step-by-step mini-tutorials teach you about web services, event handling, designing user interfaces with reusable components, and more. After finishing this guide, you'll be able to build Flash applications ranging from widgets to full-featured RIAs using the Flex SDK and Flex Builder 3.0 -- whether you come from an open source or Visual Studio-intensive background.

Discover how easy RIA development can be with this one-of-a-kind handbook from the Adobe Developer Library. Several clear, step-by-step mini-tutorials teach you about web services, event handling, designing user interfaces with reusable components, and more. After finishing this guide, you'll be able to build Flash applications ranging from widgets to full-featured RIAs using the Flex SDK and Flex Builder 3.0. With Getting Started with Flex 3, you will:

• Walk through sample RIA projects and see examples of amazing applications people have built with Flex
• Work with ActionScript 3.0 and the MXML markup language
• Build user interfaces using the controls and tools available with the framework
• Get a tour of controls available commercially and through open source
• Learn how Flex integrates with ASP.NET, ColdFusion, PHP, and J2EE in the server
• Build Flex-based widgets that let you display real-time data
• Use advanced controls to build 3D graphs, data dashboards, mapping applications, and more

You'll find complete code for video players, a slideshow, a chat client, and an RSS reader, just to name a few. You also get plenty of tips, tricks, and techniques to leverage your existing programming skills, whether you come from an open source or Visual Studio-intensive background.