Alternative to Flex Framework

Question

Is there an alternative ActionScript 3 lightweight framework out there similar to Flex, but not as huge. Flex is fairly large, and SWF's being no less than 150Kb big, I'm just thinking it must be possible to get something that have smaller SWF files as an end result.

I've come accross AS Wing, and was curious if there's more.

Thanks for the replies in advance!

score 6 · Answer 1 · answered Jul 08 '09 at 22:47

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This may be what you're looking for :

http://code.google.com/p/flit/

I haven't tested it yet so I can't really say if it's worth it or not

answered Jul 08 '09 at 22:47

Florian F

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I have wrote major parts of this framework. It's definitely worth at least looking at the code from the samples. This website is written in FLit - http://oxleygin.com/ - this is from 2009. Another good sample of FLit in action is the new website of my company - http://obecto.com/ - this is from 2011 – Vladimir Tsvetkov Oct 03 '11 at 07:45

score 5 · Answer 2 · answered Jul 08 '09 at 20:26

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You can change some settings when compiling to reduce the size of your .swf. Here is a blog posting showing how.: Reduce Flex 3 File Size. Basically you compile the sdk into a separate .swf that gets cached by the flash player.

answered Jul 08 '09 at 20:26

Shua

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As of Flex 4 Adobe is hosting these. They are cached by the Flash Player too, so even if a user clears their cache the framework remains cached. – Joel Hooks Jul 09 '09 at 23:33

score 5 · Answer 3 · answered Jul 08 '09 at 20:40

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http://www.openlaszlo.org/ is an open source alternative that can generate swf8, dhtml, or swf9.

answered Jul 08 '09 at 20:40

P T Withington

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+1: I didn't think much of it until I actually tried it, but it's a great framework. Not as good as Flex yet (IMO), but if you don't need all the bloat, OpenLaszlo is definitely a great alternative. – Sasha Chedygov Jul 08 '09 at 20:50

score 1 · Answer 4 · answered Jul 08 '09 at 19:19

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The GraniteDS framework provides a clean-room re-implementation of the MXML->SWF compiler, and it may possibly give you options to generate smaller SWF files. It can also do that compilation on the fly, which is pretty cool.

answered Jul 08 '09 at 19:19

skaffman

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score 1 · Answer 5 · answered Jul 09 '09 at 23:19

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Why don't just use Flash? You can dump your logic in AS class file. Swf from Flash can be pretty small, can down to 8kb, or even smaller.

Correct me if I am wrong, I see Flex as a Flash with XML Layout Manager (which can position components well during resizing). If you are willing to spend time on designing a Layout Manager for Flash, i think Flash is a good choice. Flash supports AS3, pureMVC.

Of course, Flex is free :)

answered Jul 09 '09 at 23:19

janetsmith

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Flex supplies a lot more than just the visual components. The declarative layout can be a real timesaver, but there are a lot of other aspects to the Flex toolkit. You can also use the Flex SDK to compile straight AS3 without the overhead of the actual Flex Framework. Flash, as of CS4 is actually using the Flex SDK (mxmlc) to compile also. I wouldn't be surprised if it gets rebranded Flash SDK soon. – Joel Hooks Jul 09 '09 at 23:37

Kaken Bok · Answer 6 · 2011-07-29T13:52:33.800

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Another component libary:

AS Data Provider Controls is a new set of standard UI components built with plain ActionScript. Open source.

Edit: self-plug

edited Jul 29 '11 at 13:52

answered Feb 05 '10 at 13:04

Kaken Bok

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score 1 · Answer 7 · answered Oct 28 '10 at 11:22

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check out http://www.weaverfx.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=13&Itemid=6 they claim that applications built with there framework are of the tune of 20 to 100Kb

answered Oct 28 '10 at 11:22

frank

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Kaken Bok · Answer 8 · 2011-07-29T13:52:11.210

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AS3Commons UI Invalidation & LifeCycle provides an entire component life cycle framework similiar to that of Flex but written in pure AS3 an hence small and independent. If you are about to create your own components you should give this library a try.

Edit: self-plug

edited Jul 29 '11 at 13:52

answered Jul 28 '11 at 14:58

Kaken Bok

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score 0 · Accepted Answer · answered Jul 12 '09 at 11:21

Thanks for all the helpful replies. I'm busy experimenting a bit with an ActionScript 3 project in Flex Builder, and I think I might just create the components I need myself and make them modular for re-use in other projects.

That way, I can include exactly and only that what my application is using, and not worry about an additional x00000Kb of data that gets dragged along either as an RSL, or merged in my code.

Alternative to Flex Framework

9 Answers9