Flex Frameworks

Some say that if a technology has a lot of frameworks, then it is a sign of maturity. You might argue with that, but still I think it is interesting to know what are the available frameworks in the Flex/Flash world.

This is work in progress, thus if you know other frameworks, please post a comment or send me an email.

MVC frameworks and Dependency Injection

Cairngorm (Adobe Open Source) – MVC framework
PureMVC (Open Source) – MVC framework
Mate (Open Source) – Mate is a tag-based, event-driven Flex framework
Swiz (Open Source) – Metadata-based Dependency Injection framework
Spring ActionScript (Open Source) – Dependency Injection framework part of SpringSource
Parsley (Open Source) – IOC Container (Configuration and Dependency Injection), MVC, and localization
Robotlegs – automated metadata based dependency injection micro-architecture (framework) with a light footprint and limited scope
HydraMVC – total rewrite of the PureMVC API exclusively for Flex
dpHibernate – lazy loading across BlazeDS and Hibernate
Flight Framework – MVC framework

Articles to get some idea about what these frameworks offer:

Testing frameworks and code coverage

FlexUnit (Adobe Open Source) – conceptually based on famous JUnit
FlexPMD (Adobe Technical Services) – tool for auditing AS3/Flex code against bad practices (anti-patterns, unused code, over-complex code, inefficient code). You can add rules and it can be used from Ant/Maven or Automator (Mac).
Funit (Open Source) – Metadata Driven Unit Testing for Flex
asUnit (Open Source) – Unit Testing Framework
fluint (Open Source) – Unit Testing with further richer asynchronous support and support for integration-level testing
FlexMonkey (Open Source) – UI testing, capture replay
Selenium (Open Source) – API for Selenium
FlashSelenium (Open Source) – Selenium RC Client driver extension
HP QuickTest Professional 9.5 (Commercial License)
mock-as3 (Open Source) – mock object library
FlexCover (Open Source) – code coverage
FunFX – functional testing framework
Mock4AS – a simple Mock Object Library for ActionScript3
ASMock – ActionScript 3 Mocking Framework
Mockito – mocking framework for Flex

Building and Continue Integration

Ant task (Adobe Open Source) – comes with Flex SDK
flexmojos (Open Source) – Set of maven plugins for Adobe AIR and Flex development
ServeBox (Open Source) – Flex maven plugin
Flex Maven Reports (Open Source) – Maven reports for Flex
Hudson (Open Source) – Continuous Integration engine
CruiseControl.NET (Open Source) – Continuous Integration engine
projectsprouts (Open Source) – cross-platform project generation and configuration tool for ActionScript 2, ActionScript 3, Adobe AIR and Flex projects

Flash 3D Engines

AlternativaPlatform
Papervision3D
Away3D
Sandy3d (OpenSource)
Ambiera Coppercube – create your scene or import your 3D models into the CopperCube 3D editor, set camera controllers, materials and more, and click ‘publish’.

Server side libraries/frameworks for Flex

PHP:

Zend AMF – remoting library, part of the Zend Framework
AMFPHP – remoting library
WebORB for PHP – remoting and data messaging (producer/consumer)
SabreAMF – remoting library

Java:

LiveCycle Data Services ES (Adobe, commercial license) – remoting, data messaging, data management, proxy, real time data pushing and synchronization, paging
BlazeDS (Adobe Open Source) – remoting, data messaging, proxy
Graniteds (Open Source) – remoting, EJB 3 services, data push
WebORB for Java – remoting, data management, real time data messaging, client synchronization and paging. Additionally, it supports streaming video, recording video and remote shared objects
Pimento (Open Source) – data management

ColdFusion:

LiveCycle Data Services ES (Adobe, commercial license) – remoting, data messaging, data management, proxy, data pushing and synchronization, paging
BlazeDS (Adobe Open Source) – remoting, data messaging, proxy

.NET:

WebORB for .NET – data management, real-time messaging, remoting, MSMQ integration, client synchronization for data management, video streaming, remote shared objects
FluorineFX – remoting, data messaging, data management (partial)
Visual Studio plugins for Flex (you can use these plugins to develop Flex applications in the Microsoft Visual Studio; both are free):
- Tofino from Ensemble
- Amethyst from Sapphire Steel

Ruby on Rails:

WebORB for Ruby on Rails – remoting
RubyAMF (Open Source) – remoting

Python:

PYAMF – remoting
DjangoAMF – remoting
AmFast – AMF0/AMF3 encoder/decoder for Python. Core encoder and decoder are written in C, so it’s around 18x faster than PyAmf

Utils:

as3corelib – library that contains a number of classes and utilities for working with ActionScript 3 (include classes for MD5 and SHA 1 hashing, Image encoders, and JSON serialization as well as general String, Number and Date APIs)
as3xls – package to read and write Excel files (it supports reading text, numbers, formulas, and dates from Excel version 2.x-2003 and writing text, numbers, and dates)

Uncategorized

RIAlity – an advanced arquitecture for Flex and JEE with tooling (Eclipse Plugins) that allows to be more productive and deliver better RIA products
Gaia Framework – open-source front-end Flash Framework for AS3 and AS2
Degrafa (Open Source) – declarative graphics framework for Flex
TLFX (MLP 1.1 license) - built on top of Text Layout Framework, it is a library for rendering HTML/CSS in Flash applications
UML4AS – UML Editor for ActionScript and Flex. Support code generating, reverse engineering, round trips.

RSS feed for comments on this post.

40 Responses to “Flex Frameworks”

1. Flex and ActionScript frameworks and libraries : Mihai CORLAN on February 23rd, 2009 4:20 pm

[...] Flex Frameworks [...]
2. Enrique Duvos on February 23rd, 2009 6:10 pm

Good post!!!
3. Laurent on February 23rd, 2009 7:21 pm

one more… Flite http://code.google.com/p/fliteframework/
4. Gustavo on February 23rd, 2009 7:59 pm

We ask ourselves, what is the combination that Mihai prefers.. For working in an Enterprise Project using PHP.. ;)
5. Constantiner on February 23rd, 2009 9:26 pm

Asmock – http://asmock.sourceforge.net/
Mock4as – http://code.google.com/p/mock4as/

The first project is really great!
6. Mihai Corlan on February 23rd, 2009 9:33 pm

@Gustavo

I am working on an article to give my thoughts on the existent PHP libraries for remoting… not finished yet.
7. Christian H. Mosveen on February 24th, 2009 12:36 am

Good list, Mihai. Another functional testing framework is FunFX, which was presented at Flex Camp Oslo: http://funfx.rubyforge.org/
8. Carlos Rovira on February 24th, 2009 11:51 am

Great recopilation! :)

Another one: RIAlity, our Advanced Flex/JEE arquitecture.

type: commercial

urls:

http://www.carlosrovira.com/#/products/
http://www.carlosrovira.com/blog/index.php?s=riality

Hope you like it!

:)

Carlos Rovira
9. laurent on February 25th, 2009 1:24 am

Another: Clear Toolkit http://is.gd/kJnQ
10. Hidden Place Blog » Blog Archive » Frameworks para Flex/Flash on February 25th, 2009 10:11 pm

[...] http://corlan.org/flex-frameworks/ [...]
11. shaun on April 26th, 2009 6:30 pm

Two more:

SmartyPants-IOC (Guice-like Dependency Injection):

RobotLegs AS3 (PureMVC-like MVCS Framework)
12. flex mvc frameworks « Fiji Ecuador Seattle Greece Montana on May 12th, 2009 1:35 am

[...] http://corlan.org/flex-frameworks/ [...]
13. Martin Eiler on May 13th, 2009 7:14 pm

http://www.gaiaflashframework.com
14. Bogdan on June 18th, 2009 11:45 pm

Hello there! I’ve seen these days your ‘J2EE/Flex database application generation’. Simple and nice. I am having some truble doing the same stuff, an ugly NullPointer right at the end (http://livedocs.adobe.com/flex/3/html/help.html?content=data_3.html). PS: nice page.
15. Kris on June 30th, 2009 12:05 pm

Mockito for flex http://bitbucket.org/loomis/mockito-flex/ a simpler mocking
16. Carlos on September 2nd, 2009 8:56 pm

http://www.hydramvc.com/
17. Martyn on September 2nd, 2009 9:06 pm

CopperCube – 3D engine for Flash and Windows
http://www.ambiera.com/coppercube/index.html
18. Paul Robertson on November 19th, 2009 9:09 pm

Yes, definitely don’t forget RobotLegs:
http://robotlegs.org/

(Shaun mentioned it above but didn’t provide a link.)

For some idea of popularity (or at least the ability for the frameworks to campaign for votes):
http://stacyyoung.org/2009/10/17/flexas3-framework-poll-results/
19. Tyler Wright on November 19th, 2009 9:18 pm

The Flight Framework is an MVC framework focused on simplicity and utility:

http://www.flightxd.com/flightframework

- looks like there’s a flite framework mentioned as an extension to PureMVC? Not to be confused with the MVC framework Flight Framework.
20. Flex Framework « Techie Note on November 19th, 2009 10:25 pm

[...] Flex Framework Posted on November 19, 2009 by mylblog http://corlan.org/flex-frameworks/ [...]
21. Shailesh Mangal on November 19th, 2009 11:43 pm

Declarative graphics framework
http://www.degrafa.org/
22. Marty Pitt on November 20th, 2009 1:06 am

dpHibernate – http://code.google.com/p/dphibernate/ Allows for lazy loading across BlazeDS and Hibernate. New features recently added allow for simple entity persistence from the Flex Client to Hibernate.
23. Robert Penner on November 20th, 2009 1:12 am

Robotlegs: DI, IoC and MVCS micro-architecture
http://robotlegs.org

Mockito-Flex: mocking framework
http://bitbucket.org/loomis/mockito-flex/wiki/Home

Hamcrest-AS3: matchers toolkit for unit testing and mocking
http://github.com/drewbourne/hamcrest-as3
24. David Jumeau on November 20th, 2009 1:16 am

Wow! I agree, this is a good post. Now I am getting a headache about what to learn. Lord, help me!

Oh yeah, I also use the casalib framework @http://www.casalib.org
25. Joel Hooks on November 20th, 2009 1:17 am

Robotlegs – http://robotlegs.org
26. Peter Moelgaard on November 20th, 2009 1:40 am

hehehe… another example proving that the beauty of standards is that there are so many to choose from… anyways, nice recap… you should create something other than a blog-post to capture the continouos development in this area… perhaps create and help maintain this entry…
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Flex-frameworks&action=edit

Btw… thanks for a nice evening the other night in Bucharest.
27. Luke Bayes on November 20th, 2009 1:52 am

Another one for your “Building and Continuous Integration” section…

http://projectsprouts.org

It makes SWF development suck a lot less.
28. Chris Velevitch on November 20th, 2009 3:45 am

“Selenium (Open Source) – API for Selenium” yes, but what is Selenium? It’s API for it’s self?
29. Flex Frameworks | .:: klr20mg ::. Una dosis diaria de .... on November 20th, 2009 7:48 am

[...] Frameworks ESCRITO POR Tmeister EN November – 19 – 2009 Esta es una excelente recopilación de Frameworks para trabajar con Flash/Flex, [...]
30. akash on December 7th, 2009 5:17 pm

Hi,

Is there any content management system that you can recommend for the Flex development ?

Thanks,
31. Ricos on December 13th, 2009 7:46 pm

FreeSpin3D
http://www.freespin3d.com/
FreeSpin3D™ Extension for Adobe® Flash® and Flex® allows rich media designers and developers to easily create advanced interactive 3D content for Adobe Flash in minutes. FreeSpin3D is the only real-time 3D technology that utilizes the Adobe Flash animation timeline and provides live visual feedback of the 3D model position and rotation on the Flash stage. By utilizing the Adobe Flash designer toolset and providing built-in interactive 3D behaviors that can be applied with a single mouse click, FreeSpin3D is simple enough for beginning designers, while the FreeSpin3D advanced API allows Flash and Flex ActionScript developers to push the limits of 3D delivery over the web.
32. Ricos on December 13th, 2009 7:49 pm

Yogurt 3d
http://www.yogurt3d.com
Yogurt3D Game Engine (Y3D) is a 3D Flash engine that works inside your browser via Adobe Flash Player and doesn’t require users to download plug-ins. Yogurt3D’s core part, SwiftGL, is based on an OpenGL compatible framework and will be free software. This means developers who already program in OpenGL or are familiar with APIs can easily develop 3D Flash games and applications. Y3D supports major 3D modeling and animation platforms and enables user-generated content such as avatars, interiors, objects and animations.
33. Ricos on December 13th, 2009 7:59 pm

- Flashdraw3D
http://code.google.com/p/flashdraw3d/
This library is designed to implement the same features as the 2D drawing API. Except in 3D.

- Infinity3D
http://www.infinity3d-engine.com/ru/

-WireEngine3D
http://www.3key.at/we3d/forum/

-AS3Mod
(vertex animation – cross-engine modifier library for flash 3d)
http://www.everydayflash.com/blog/index.php/2008/09/03/as3dmod/
34. vapes on December 16th, 2009 8:13 pm

Merge with this one ;)
http://www.adrianparr.com/?p=83
35. andychen on March 15th, 2010 7:08 am

aswing

http://www.aswing.org/
36. Come hear me speak in Tel Aviv « Hillel Coren on April 14th, 2010 5:47 pm

[...] Corlan, a Platform Evangelist with Adobe will also be speaking. His blog has an excellent list of Flex frameworks and libraries which is definitely worth checking [...]
37. Thulasinathan Kandasamy on April 29th, 2010 4:13 pm

Good post. Observed a typo, flight framework is listed as fight framework. Hope you won’t fight me ;)

Tulsi
38. Cristian on June 18th, 2010 7:43 pm

UML4AS – UML for ActionScript and Flex is a modeling tool tailored for AS & Flex. It supports AS code sync and has a “developer friendly” approach regarding its usage and integration in the IDEs. http://www.uml4as.com

Cristian.
39. Miguel Martín on July 15th, 2010 11:44 am

Hello Mihai, sorry for this late comment but I’ve realized that you have collected a great set of flex, flash and actionscript libraries and tools and I want to share with you our own MVC framework. Hope you consider it good enough to include it in your list (copy&paste from our google code site):

“CycleFramework is a view management and development oriented framework for applications implemented with actionscript3 and flex technologies. It is developed and mantained by Cycle-IT.

CycleFramework is specially useful for management-like applications, where the different view states follow a root-branch-leaf pattern clearly: the application will have a well defined navigation tree.”

Url: http://code.google.com/p/cycleframework/
Mirror: http://cycleframework.riaforge.org/

License: Open source (MIT)
40. Mark Barton » Adobe Flex Frameworks & why they matter (particularly if your coming from Lotus Notes) on August 4th, 2010 2:40 am

[...] There are several frameworks available (list taken from http://corlan.org/flex-frameworks/): [...]