[OSGeo-Discuss] RE: [Majas-dev] [Majas-users] Flex in geomajas

[G. Allegri]

I've worked for some months on Flex (and on Extjs at the same time). I
think it's a very powerful framework that boosts the productivity,
easy to program, with lots of support resources. Ok, it's Adobe, it
depends on Flash players, and so on (and it worths thinking twice to
adopt it) so, my idea is always the same: the choice depends on the
business target, and what you want from it. I've reached high
vectorial interactivity on heavy geometries with few lines of code. My
boss asked me edge cutting animated charts, interaction between charts
and map features, on hundreds classes of statistical indicators...
Flex has been the easier and faster answer.
For a general purpose gis client I wouldn't like to have ONLY a Flex
interface. But it could be an important, and unique feature, for the
OS world of GIS, like the double clients in ArcGIS Server: ArcGIS JS
API and Flex API. The best from both.

2009/2/24 P Kishor <punk.kish at gmail.com>:
> On Tue, Feb 24, 2009 at 7:01 AM, Leonardo Mateo <leonardomateo at gmail.com> wrote:
>> On Tue, Feb 24, 2009 at 7:25 AM, Dirk Frigne <dirk.frigne at dfc.be> wrote:
>>> Sorry for the cross posting, but I found an interesting mail about
>>> performance and webmapping in the majas developers list.
>>>
>>> Today, Geomajas is written in Java for the server part, and uses Javascript
>>> in the frontend.
>>> Although the performance is good enough to support a proper amount of
>>> editable objects, we always are looking to mechanisms to improve the speed
>>> and usability of the front end.
>>>
>>> Pieter has done some tests with the Flex technology and they are very
>>> promising(details in his mail attached).
>>> Should it be a problem for distribution that the technology is shipped in
>>> the form of an installable plug-in instead of native browser technology such
>>> as VML or SVG, or isn't that an issue?
>>>
>>> And who has experience with this technology?
>>>
>>> I would appreciate your feedback ...
>>>
>>>
>> Ok, here's my grain of sand. I don't know what geomajas is, so I don't
>> know how much Flex would impact on this.
>> I've been working with Flex from the past two years or so, now a days
>> a little less intensive, but still working. I've worked with two or
>> three map API's for Flex and I have to say that totally worth it.
>> About the speed, I haven't seen any benchmark bu ActionScript3 should
>> be way faster than JavaScript and should work fine with large amount
>> of data, wether you use raw XML or some other technology such as AMF*.
>> About the downside Pieter mention there, I think in these days, the
>> Flash plugin is something you should have on a browser, it is not a
>> strange requirement anymore. However, you shouldn't confuse Flash with
>> Flex, even when a Flex application is a Flash movie, their are used
>> for completly different things and can work togheter since you can,
>> from Flex, use resources from an swf made in Flash.
>>
>> Anyway, my opinion is: "go for it if your UI is complex enough", Flex
>> allows you to build a really complex, advanced UI with advanced
>> widgets that looks, performs and behaves really good. Programming AS
>> is way much easier than JavaScript (I come from a JS background too)
>> not to mention modularization possibilites with Flex Modules and
>> Libraries also, you should reduce the browser compatibility issues in
>> a 95% at least.
>>
>>
>
>
> I too don't know what geomajas is, and Flex may or may not be the best
> solutinon for it, but consider that Flex/Flash are not supported on
> iPhone, and probably never will be. Actually, I don't know much about
> Flash/Flex as well, but I am assuming that even though they are
> different products, they produce the same SWF end result, and require
> a Flash player/plugin on the client, and Flash is a huge CPU hog. Ever
> since I installed ClickToFlash
> (http://github.com/rentzsch/clicktoflash/) on my Macbook, I am a happy
> camper.
>
> So, if you don't mind geomajas to not be accessible to the largest
> mobile web platform, Flex/Flash may well be a good solution.
>
> --
> Puneet Kishor http://www.punkish.org/
> Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies http://www.nelson.wisc.edu/
> Open Source Geospatial Foundation (OSGeo) http://www.osgeo.org/
> Sent from: Madison WI United States.
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