BlazeDS

If you are using a Flex SDK before 3.5a then it’s probably time to update. Flex SDKs before 3.4 have a security vulnerability. I believe the problem is actually in the HTML template, so when you update make sure that you also update the HTML templates that you are using. The Flex SDK 3.4 had the double responder bug. And the initial release of Flex SDK 3.5 had a bug with AIR’s ApplicationUpdaterUI. If you overlay your own AIR SDK on top of the Flex SDK then be aware that you will actually be overwriting the ApplicationUpdaterUI fix (comments in the bug report discuss how to deal with that).

UPDATE 1: Flash Builder 4, BlazeDS 4, and Spring 1.0.3 have all been release so you no longer have to use beta or nightly builds of these products. Use the production versions!

UPDATE 2: I’ve done a second part to this screencast that combines Flex 4, Flash Builder 4, Spring 3, BlazeDS 4, and Hibernate 3.

UPDATE 3: A Refcard on Integrating Spring 3 and Flex 4, which I co-authored, is now available! It provides a step-by-step tutorial for setting up everything I show in the video below.

Here is the video of my session from MAX 2009 - Introduction to BlazeDS and LCDS. In this session I walk through the basics of connecting Flex applications to BlazeDS and LCDS. Let me know what you think!

Here are a few upcoming Flex and Java presentations I’ll be giving:

• Thursday October 29 in Zurich - RIAs with Java, Spring, Hibernate, BlazeDS, and Flex
• Thursday November 12 in Dallas - Java and Flex
• Friday November 13 in Plano, TX - Flex and the Cloud @ TexFlex09

I hope to see you there!

MAX 2009 is coming fast! It’s going to be another great event with tons of great speakers and after party fun. Here are my sessions this year:

• Introduction to BlazeDS and LiveCycle Data Services
• Designing for Augmented Reality
• Building Flex and Adobe AIR Service Clients 2009
• Flex and Adobe AIR Boot Camp

Also Drunk on Software will be there filming some episodes.

So this is certainly a MAX you don’t want to miss! I hope to see you there!

UPDATE: BlazeDS 4 and LCDS 3.1 now have built-in support to disallow subscriptions to wildcard subtopics. Just set the following parameter on the messaging destination’s server properties:

<disallow-wildcard-subtopics>false</disallow-wildcard-subtopics>

You no longer need to use the ProtectedMessagingAdapter from the code examples below in order to protect your messages.

One of the great things about Flex is how easy it is to set up publish and subscribe messaging using BlazeDS, LCDS, or other various server technologies. Basically a Flex application can be either a Consumer of messages from the server, a Producer of messages to the server, or both. The channels that are used for the actual transport can vary dramatically depending on the needs. Here is a great blog that explains the different transports. No matter what transport / channel is used the API in Flex is the same. If you'd like to see how to use those APIs check out this video I recorded.

A while back I created the Census RIA Benchmark to illustrate the benefits of having both a high performance client VM and a binary serialization protocol. These factors combined lead to significantly faster data transfer and rendering for large datasets in rich Internet applications. Recently I created an Adobe TV video that walks through Census and how to use Flex and BlazeDS to take advantage of these benefits. Check it out and let me know what you think.

UPDATE: There is a new version of the Refcard available:
Flex 4, Hibernate 3, and Spring 3 Integration

DZone has just published a new Refcard “Flex & Spring Integration” written by Jon Rose and me. This is the second Refcard I’ve written. The first was “Very First Steps in Flex,” which was a few chapters from First Steps in Flex written by Bruce Eckel and me. Working on the Flex & Spring Integration Refcard was fun because I was able to learn more about the new Spring BlazeDS Integration project from SpringSource. I’ve been really impressed with how easy it is to integrate Flex and Spring together. Another great resource for learning how to integrate Flex and Spring is Christophe Coenraets’ Spring BlazeDS Integration Test Drive. It contains a bunch of great examples that will help you better understand how to get everything set up and working.

Over the past few months Greg Wilson, Christophe Coenraets, and myself have been hard at work on a secret project. So today we are proud to announce the new Tour de Flex has just gone live! Tour de Flex showcases the capabilities of Flex, BlazeDS, LCDS, Adobe AIR, and Flash Player (now collectively called the Adobe Flash Platform).

Like the old Flex Component Explorer, Tour de Flex can be used to find components. But it goes way beyond just out-of-the-box Flex components. This first release contains 217 components and samples including popular Cloud APIs like Salesforce.com and Intuit, numerous community components from people like Doug McCune and Tink, commercial components from companies like ILog, and numerous other goodies. If you find something missing you can submit it!

A podcast I recently did with Chariot Solutions has just been published. Let me know what you think.