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Flash could be seen everywhere. Our online videos are usually rendered in flash, there are simple flash games that we can enjoy and it is used to provide a highly interactive website. Flash even beats Java in loading times. But Flash is often thought as just another eye-candy application that has become essential for online use.
JavaScript on the other hand is a client side web development language that has become the pillar of an Ajax based web technique. The popularity of Ajax is obvious today because Ajax based websites, frameworks and tools are growing exponentially. More and more developers are becoming interested in JavaScript and on how to properly use their preferred web development language through the framework.
Going with the trend and seeing the opportunity that Ajax provides for Flash, Paul Colton built AFLAX. Paul Colton is known as the developer of Adobe’s JRun - an application server for Java that existed for 10 years (1997 – 2007).
Aflax is a lightweight Ajax based framework because it reduces the workload of JavaScript in the client side. Instead a full JavaScript browser, parts of it will be used with Flash. For the user, the experience will be different but the information and functions of the website will be the same.
Integrating Ajax with Flash is made possible with a Flash plug-in to JavaScript. Using this small function, Flash-related functions will be integrated within the JavaScript scripting. Flash developers could use functions such as canvass.renderer and drawShapes while building an Ajax based application.
Developers could build an Ajax based webpage with flash by integrating the library of Ajax with Flash to HTML. Once it has been laid out, the webpage is readied for streaming information from the server by the command “onReady”.
When this function is invoked and the user selects a command in the browser, the information is fetched regularly. But instead of returning as a JavaScript, the information is loaded through the commands of Flash. The canvass.renderer and drawShapes functions will display the data requested by the user. The flash area in the website is controlled by the “div” function.
Basically, Flash is laid out as an add-on to the JavaScript. But it replaces the client side scripting of JavaScript and according to Colton, the Ajax that is produced with the Aflax framework is even lighter. In fact, the applications and websites that were built using the framework could even be rendered for mobile websites. Judging from Flash instead of JavaScript, it might actually be lighter.
There is just one concern with Flash – it was able to get over the problem of just being an eye candy for the website but it has become too inhibiting for the Ajax based website. The function “div’ in Aflax may not be really useful at all since you might be limited to only one Flash page. But still, this lightweight framework is worth the second look because it opens up the possibility of integrated Flash with Ajax.
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