Building a desktop application with Flash Builder for Force.com – Introduction

Adobe Flash Builder for Force.com is an IDE developed jointly by Adobe and salesforce.com that gives developers a single, powerful tool for building Force.com Flex desktop applications with Flex and Adobe AIR. This tutorial series is designed to step developers new to Flex through the process of building an application from start to end, covering salesforce.com, Stratus, Flex, and AIR fundamentals.

Some of the content covered in this tutorial series is also covered in the quick start, Create your first Force.com Flex desktop application. The quick start builds a basic Force.com Flex application using the standard salesforce.com Account object. It provides succinct steps without details or explanation. This tutorial series builds a more feature-rich application using custom salesforce.com data that you create and provides detailed explanations of all the code you create when you create it.

Before jumping into the tutorials, make sure you read the Flash Builder for Force.com technology overview article, Understanding the technologies for building Force.com Flex applications with Adobe Flash Builder for Force.com, to make sure you understand all the technologies involved in creating and running Force.com Flex applications.

Depending upon your background as a Force.com, Flex, or AIR developer, you may already know how to do some of the tasks, so you may want to use the following suggested paths:

• Force.com developer: Parts 1–7
• Flex developer: Parts 1–5, 7
• Flex AIR developer: Parts 1–5

Salesforce.com fundamentals

• Part 1: Set up salesforce.com data steps you through using the salesforce.com website to create and populate a database table and to generate an offline briefcase and a WSDL. If you are already familiar with salesforce.com, you still need to complete this tutorial in order to create the salesforce.com data that will be used in the rest of this tutorial series.

Salesforce fundamentals

• Part 2: Create the basic application details how to create and run a basic application that successfully logs in to your salesforce.com account.
• Part 3: Retrieve and display salesforce.com data teaches you how to use Stratus classes and components to retrieve and display salesforce.com data.
• Part 4: Edit salesforce.com data explains how to use Stratus classes and components to update, add, and delete salesforce.com data.
• Part 5: Provide user feedback with Stratus components teaches you how to display messages using the Salesforce status bar and toast components.

Flex fundamentals

• Part 6: Enhance the application with Flex components details how to use Flex data binding, collections and components to add text, images, combo boxes, lists, and data grids.

AIR fundamentals

• Part 7: Package and distribute the application explains how to create an AIR application that can be updated and installed to the desktop using an AIR file or a badge installer.

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