Creating Flex Builder Projects that Use Server Technologies

Creating Flex Builder Projects that Use Server Technologies

You can create Flex projects in Flex Builder 3 that use ASP.NET, ColdFusion, PHP, or J2EE server technologies. For information about creating projects that user server technologies, see:

http://livedocs.adobe.com/labs/flex3/html/help.html?content=Part1_Using_FB_1.html

You can also use Flex Builder with the BlazeDS server; for more information, read the following procedure.

Related topics:

• Creating a BlazeDS messaging application in Flex Builder
• Creating a BlazeDS web service application in Flex Builder

Creating a Flex project that uses the BlazeDS server

Flex Builder does not include BlazeDS as one of the server options when you create a Flex project that uses J2EE. However, you can select the LiveCycle Data Services option and manually set the  root folder, root URL, and context root of your BlazeDS web application.

Complete the following steps to create a BlazeDS-enabled project:

1. Select File > New > Flex Project.
2. Enter a project name.
3. Select an application type. If you are creating an AIR application, make sure you do not have any server tokens in URLs in the service configuration files. In the web applications that ship with BlazeDS, server tokens are used in the channel endpoint URLs in the WEB-INF/flex/services-config.xml file, as the following example shows:

   <endpoint url="https://{server.name}:{server.port}/{context.root}/messagebroker/streamingamf"
   class="flex.messaging.endpoints.StreamingAMFEndpoint"/>
   

   You would change that line to something like this:

   <endpoint url="http://your_server_name:8400/blazeds/messagebroker/streamingamf"
   class="flex.messaging.endpoints.StreamingAMFEndpoint"/>
   

4. Select J2EE as the server technology.
5. Select "Use remote object acccess".
6. Select "LiveCycle Data Services".
7. Deselect "Create combined Java/Flex Project with WTP" if that option is available.
8. Click Next.
9. Deselect Use default location for local LiveCycle Data Services server.
10. Manually set the root folder, root URL, and context root of your BlazDS web application.
11. Make sure the option to compile the application locally in Flex Builder is selected.
12. Make sure that your BlazeDS server is running, and click Validate Configuration.
13. Click Finish.

You should now be able to create, compile, and run an application that uses BlazeDS.

Working with BlazeDS sample application source in Flex Builder

1. Create a FlexBuilder project for each sample application you are interested in. There are several approaches to create a FlexBuilder project for a Flex application that works with BlazeDS. We describe a simple approach here.
2. Select File>New>Project... in the FlexBuilder menu.
3. Expand FlexBuilder, select Flex Project and click Next.
4. Provide a project name. Use the exact name of the sample folder. For example testdrive-remoteobject.
5. Unzip flex-src.zip located in WEB-INF/flex-src to the root folder of your FlexBuilder workspace.
6. If you unzipped flex-src.zip in the root folder of your FlexBuilder workspace, keep the use default location checkbox checked.
7. Select Web Application as the application type.
8. Select J2EE as the application server type.
9. Check Use remote object access service.
10. Uncheck Create combined Java/Flex project using WTP if this option is available.
11. Click Next.
12. Make sure the root folder for LiveCycle Data Services matches the root folder of your BlazeDS web application. If you are using the Tomcat integrated server on Windows, the settings should look similar to this (you may need to adjust the exact folder based on your own settings):
    Root Folder: C:/blazeds-beta1/tomcat/webapps/blazeds-samples
    Root URL: http://localhost:8400/blazeds-samples/
    Context Root: /blazeds-samples
13. Click Validate Configuration.
14. Click Finish.