Flash Player 8 and Flex 1.5

So, you've heard about Macromedia Flash Player 8 and want to know what it brings your Macromedia Flex application development. First and foremost, you should be comfortable that every Flex application that you created to run in Flash Player 7 will run flawlessly in Flash Player 8, only a bit faster and consuming a lot less memory.

Flash Player 8 brings Flex developers a few key features–ones you will welcome. And as an added bonus, several of the most important features don't even require that you change a line of code or recompile your application.

Because you gain many of the key benefits of Flash Player 8 in your Flex 1.5 applications, Macromedia has no plans to release a new version of Flex specifically for the Flash Player 8 version. Using Flex 1.5, you can leverage performance improvements, memory consumption improvements, and many of the new features in Flash Player 8, including file upload/download, the ActionScript/JavaScript API, improved video quality, GIF loading, and many more features.

While you may see opportunities to use many of the new features in Flash Player 8, the following is a quick rundown of the major new features of Flash Player 8 that are interesting to most Flex 1.5 developers.

Performance

When you run your current Flex 1.5 application in Flash Player 8, you will notice improved performance. We have tested many Flex applications and in general, most Flex applications perform between 20–30% faster. You'll see improvements in scrolling speed for large data grids, changing views in viewstacks and tabbed interfaces, and in initial rendering speed, and, in general, your whole application will feel a little faster. You don't even have to modify a line of code or recompile your Flex application to gain this benefit. Simply by using Flash Player 8, you will feel the speed improvement.

Memory Consumption

Flash Player 8 dramatically improves client-side memory consumption for your users. Many Flex applications consume about half the memory they used running in Flash Player 7. This is due to better garbage collection in Flash Player 8. Your applications will consume about half the memory, even as your Flex applications become larger and more complex. Again, you don't need to write a line of code or recompile anything. Just run your applications using Flash Player 8 to see the improvement.

File Upload and Download

While you can integrate file upload/download into your Flex applications using Flash Player 7 and JavaScript, many Flex developers asked for a native way to add this functionality directly in Flash Player without using JavaScript. Now you can use the new Flash Player 8 file upload/download feature in your Flex 1.5 applications. You will need to write a bit of code, of course, but you no longer have to use the JavaScript method. In short, you can create a small Flash 8 SWF file that does nothing but transfer a specified file to the server or to a user's desktop. Read more about all of these details in the article, Using Flash Player 8 Features in Your Flex 1.5 Application.

ActionScript/JavaScript API

Regardless of how desktop-like your application is, it still runs in the browser. The new ActionScript/JavaScript API allows you to call JavaScript functions from within your Flex application and vice versa. You can now interact with your browser DOM from within your Flex application, and likewise, you can also manipulate your Flex application from JavaScript in the browser. The same code will work across all browsers in a standard way, making it a lot easier than it has been in the past. This capability exposes many opportunities for Flex application developers. You can now create hybrid Flex/HTML/AJAX experiences that allow you to communicate events and pass information from one technology to another.

Expressiveness Features

You have no doubt heard of the new expressiveness features in Flash Player 8. In general for enterprise Flex applications, you may not have a need for these. However, many are available to you in your Flex 1.5 applications. You will have to do some programming to integrate the new features, but they are there if you need them. Again, see the Using Flash Player 8 Features in Your Flex 1.5 Application article for all the details.

Other Flash Player 8 Features

There are many features in Flash Player 8 that you can leverage in your Flex application using the same approach of building the content in Flash 8 and loading it into your Flex 1.5 application. Also, the new Express Install feature of Flash Player 8 allows your users to have a great upgrade experience where Flash Player manages the upgrade itself, so you can offer your end users a smooth, seamless upgrade from within your Flex application.

So, encourage your users to download the new version of Flash Player 8. Your Flex application will run faster and consume fewer resources for your users, and you can start to develop your Flex applications using the file upload/download and other Flash Player 8 features.

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