Is Flash or Flex better to build a user interactive ordering “wizard” website?

Question

i want to see if these \"build a . . .\" flash sites (to support a user customized ordering process) are done using regular flash or Flex?

1. Site 1
2. Sit

Answer 1

The problem is more complicated than that. Since you can compile libraries in Flex and use them with Flash CS5, and create assets in CS5 and add them to a Flex project, the line is beyond blurred -- it might not exist.

My general preference for Flex is in situations where data binding is paramount. It doesn't do animations terribly well, but it has far better support for large class structures. Since it is built from Eclipse, Flash Builder (AKA Flex Builder) has the feeling of an IDE, whereas CS5 has the feeling of... another Flash Professional product.

On the other hand, if I am working with layout and animators in a very intense way, I will often rely on CS5 over Flex. CS5 gives them the ability to lay out things as they want with a very fine-grained level of control.

So, my guesses for the sites:

1. Probably Flex with imported assets -- this type of behavior is really typical for Flex components.
2. Once again Flex, but with fewer imported assets. The images have a "generated" feel, which leads me to believe that they are created by a computer and not as much by a designer.
3. This one is hard, but I would guess that it is high end CS5 -- there are a large number of well integrated animations, and while that is not hard with Flex, it is a lot easier with CS5. The repeated animations are especially typical of CS5 applications -- those are so easy in CS5...
4. Um.... I have no idea. I've actually had to do something remarkably like this in AS2 (in CS5... strange, no?), so I think that would be my guess. Pixel perfect mask placement is difficult if you have to manipulate the x and y as numbers.

What's happening (my guesses):

1. There are probably quite a few assets which were laid out ahead of time here. They would have been placed in a swc and imported into the Flex project and then swapped out at run-time. Some of these assets could be colored and displayed based on different masking tricks though -- manipulating primary and secondary color on a cake are easy fair for ActionScript if you know what you're doing.
2. I firmly believe that all of this is being done through Flash's native ability to manipulate images through code.
3. Most of these assets were laid out ahead of time, or I have to meet this guy and shake his hand, because that is just impressive.
4. Well, when I did this in CS5, it was simply a case of adding assets to a custom image distortion library, and the colors was done by adding filters to it.

As to tutorials... I don't know any which would help in this situation (that isn't to say that there aren't any, I just don't know them). Sorry.

As a bit of an aside, I've found that quite frequently Flex and CS5 are treated as entirely separate beasts. That kind of makes sense -- they have some very different paradigms. That said, a programmer has no excuse for not knowing enough to switch between them.

Answer 2

Flash is quite old stuff for building (simple) animations, think of it like a way to create graphic elements and animations.

Flex is a framework for the developers. You can develop applications with it.

A software developer should definitely go for Flex, on the other hand there might be some clicking tools for building Flash animations for people who do not wish to program.

You can hardly distinguish how the sites were built, because the result gets compiled into binary file (you might do a guess based on the file size in some cases)

Answer 3

Hm, I still don't really like any of the answers, so I'm going to chime in.

First question is "What's the difference between Flash and Flex?". At their core, they're one of the same. There is some confusion between Flash the platform (Flash Player) and Flash the tool (Flash CS); there's also Flash Builder which is a development environment made to develop in pure Actionscript or Flex. The Flash Player uses Actionscript to display what you need or you can use Flash CS to create visually what you want to show. In my opinion, don't use Flash CS unless you need a drawing/animation tool (which I don't think you do). With that said, the real question should be "What's the difference between Actionscript and Flex"? Well, there is none from a technical standpoint since Flex is made with Actionscript. What matters here is that Flex is a framework that's made for rapid rich internet application implementation. It uses the concept of layouts, skinning and styling as well as standard components (buttons, comboboxes, labels, datagrids, etc) to help you create striking applications easily and quickly. You could do the same thing in Actionscript, but would take you longer to implement the same thing, however the end application would be a lot leaner and quicker to download (normally).

Second question is "Should I be used Flex or Actionscript to create my ordering wizard?" which is the one I think you should really concentrate on. The answer is "it depends on your requirements". What Flex is really good at is a clear and concise codebase using development tools meant for user interfaces. If your ordering wizard is going to be fairly complex and/or data driven you should probably use Flex since it will give you tools to create it faster as well as make it easily changeable later. However, if the wizard is very simple and just needs to be implemented once, there's no reason why you can't use Actionscript to do it.

I hope this was helpful.

Answer 4

I recommend you start your development in pure Actionscript, that way you can make it as powerful as the language is, you should try Flash Builder, create a project, and then try with it.

i think it will be very easy, once you get the basics of AS3

Some As3 galleries and tutorials for you:

http://www.lemlinh.com/flash-tutorials-18-as3-image-gallery-tutorials-roundup/

http://www.flashmagazine.com/tutorials/detail/as3_photo_gallery/

Answer 5

The first site you linked is especially quite nice - you can tell the programmer put alot of work into it.

Have you worked on Flash before? The reason I am asking is because it is quite a different beast - requires both left and right brain to fully grasp. If you are just starting and want to build a site similar to the ones you linked then I will recommend 'pure' Flash with CS4 (or 5 if you can afford it). Reason being that Flex (now called Flash Builder - no confusion there haha), is really geared towards building form based websites. Yes, you can build other Flash type animations in there but its much harder to do (well), than just using Creative Studio.

Now, you might find that you eventually want or need to use Flex, but trust me you can build an entire web page with just Creative Studio complete with interaction and complex navigations. Here are some sites that may help you in your task (which is a large one btw!):

• http://tutorials.flashmymind.com/ (Mostly for nice looking effects and slick interface)
• http://www.flashkit.com/tutorials/ (Tons of tutorials on lots of different areas of Flash).

The second site has alot of tutorials for things you will need, like how to build menu items and buttons, and also how to handle user interaction (mouse moves, drags, key clicks etc). Your also going to need to know ALOT of ActionScript. Here's a good reference for that:

• The ActionScript 3.0 Quick Reference Guide

It's unfortunate you cannot use HTML 5 for this project. Making a major investment in learning Flash seems like a waste of time to me. But hopefully the links provided help you in this task and please make a comment if you need more info.

Answer 6

no he is not creating separate image for every combination . First he had created all the objects (clothes , human etc) in illustrator then imported them in flex using FXG format . Then its just simple drag drop or when you click button its event handler places the desired object at desired location .