Flex Graduates To Top-Level Project Status At Apache

The Apache Software Foundation (ASF) has announced that Apache Flex has graduated from the Apache Incubator to become a top-level project (TLP).

Formerly Adobe Flex, the project originated at Macromedia prior to its acquisition by Adobe Systems (ADBE), and was submitted to the Apache Incubator in 2011.

Commitment

“Being a TLP demonstrates Apache Flex’s commitment to ‘The Apache Way’ and the project’s ability to self-govern, and be a part of the broader ASF community,” Alex Harui, vice president of Apache Flex, said in a statement.

Flex is an open-source software development kit (SDK) for building and deploying cross-platform rich Internet applications based on the Adobe Flash platform. The Flex framework allows expressive web applications to deploy consistently on all major browsers, desktops and devices – including smartphones, tablets and TVs.

In addition, Apache Flex provides a modern, standards-based language and programming model that supports common design patterns suitable for developers from many backgrounds.

Flex applications can be deployed to the Adobe Flash Player in the browser, Adobe AIR on desktop and mobile, or to native Android, iOS, QNX, Windows or Mac applications.

The Project also announced the availability of version 4.9 of the Apache Flex application framework. Apache Flex 4.9 and the Apache Flex SDK Installer 2.0 consist of an SDK, a compiler and automated testing tools.

Bug fixes

“The Apache Flex SDK Installer increases software developer productivity by reducing the amount of time spent configuring utilities and components needed to make the SDK work with an IDE,” OmPrakash Muppirala, release manager for the Apache Flex SDK Installer, said in a statement.

The Apache Flex 4.9 SDK enables application developers to build expressive web and mobile applications using MXML for layout and ActionScript 3, an ECMAScript based language for client-side scripting.

The v4.9 release contains several important bug fixes, including improved internationalisation support, as well as additional support and enhancements. Highlights of the new release include:

• new localisations for Australian, British, Canadian, Greek, Switzerland (German) and Portuguese;
• the SDK can be compiled to work with Flash Player versions 10.2 through 11.5;
• better support for Vectors, including new VectorList and VectorCollection classes;
• inclusion of the new PostalCodeFormatter and PostalCodeValidator components for more consistent internationalisation;
• the Text Layout Framework (TLF) was updated to version 3.0.33, and is now included in the SDK; and
• support for Java 7 for compiling the SDK.

Productivity

“We are excited to continue working to develop the Apache Flex Software Development Kit, Installer, Mustella Testing Framework and Falcon Compiler to allow people to build better applications with better developer productivity,” Harui said. “Code has been donated, but our work isn’t complete to include better support for Maven and better parity between mx and spark components. The work on next release of Apache Flex is already under way. Stay tuned.”

Apache Flex software is released under the Apache License v2.0.

The Apache Incubator is the entry path for projects and code bases wishing to become part of the efforts at The Apache Software Foundation. All code donations from external organisations and existing external projects wishing to join the ASF enter through the Incubator, ASF officials said.

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