Question

I am trying to develop an Android application and I heard that for someone with less-than-superior java skills, AIR/Flex might be a good place to start.

I am noticing that all I see in Flash Builder is MXML-based. Is this how all of the code in Flex written? Via XML?

Answer 1

It depends what you mean by “XML”. MXML can contain chunks of ActionScript code both in blocks between <script> tags and right in line in attributes to controls tags, such as

<s:button click="someObject.DoSomething()">

This ActionScript embedded in MXML file is the pattern largely presented in the Flex in a Week series noted by @www-flextras-com.

But you can also have full, dedicated ActionScript files, both directly associated with .mxml objects and all by themselves. This “Code-Behind” design pattern is very much like the XAML design + C# code-behind combination in Windows Presentation Foundation applications.

An good introduction with a viewable example of strict code-behind in Flex :

• Article
• Browseable source code