Flex tag library for Laszlo.

[marcovth]

Hello ...

For the last couple of weeks, I have been trying
to learn laszlo along side flex so that I can make
applications for both platforms.

It seems to me that Flex is a lot easier to implement
for a large part because of FlexBuilder, but also
it's making use of more tags were in laszlo you have
script, and very important, I think the Flex news
groups have a lot more experienced coders who can anser
questions.

(I still didn't find a clear answer about a loop
or repeater tag in laszlo).

Anyway, ... I think if laszlo wants to become a serious
alternative to Flex, it should adapt to FlexBuilder.
I am sure Flex will become a lot cheaper in the future
as soon as MS releases its version of Flex, "Avalon".

I think, if possible, we should create a class library
in laszlo with Flex tags, so that we can use Flex
Builder (for the most part) to create laszlo applications.

It's the same strategy that NewAtlanta is using for its
alternative to MM Coldfusion MX, called "Bluedragon".
http://www.newatlanta.com/products/bluedragon/index.cfm

I have been using Bluedragon for a while, and for 95%
it is compatible to MM CMFX, or even out-performs it,
while adding some extra tags.

You can use Dreamweaver to make Bluedragon applications
and I think we should transform laszlo so that we can
use FlexBuilder to make laszlo applications.

Now, there are a couple of problems I can see right away:

- I am not sure laszlosystems is willing, or legally
allowed, to help us, so I assume it will have to be a
http://sourceforge.net/ project.

- It seems to me there are not many experienced laszlo
coders, so it could take a long time to start it up.

- I don't know what the technical problems will be?
e.g. Is it possible in laszlo to make classes with
mx:TagName names?

- And if so, if you include a long list of classes,
will this increase the size of the swf's?

Let us know what you think about this idea.

If it works, you would have to learn only one language,
... Flex, and you are in the market for both platforms !

Thanks in advance for your thoughts and suggestions.

Greetings from Sunny Montreal.

- Marco.

[nmadness]

Marco,

I'm spending my time learning Laszlo so I don't have to rely on soley Macromedia's tools. Don't get me wrong - I generally like their tools, but a more diverse ecosystem would be nice.

Personally, I can say there is no way I would put any time or effort toward integrating Laszlo with FlexBuilder. I honestly have NO interest in Flex - period. MM's track record with their server products is dismal. Remember Generator, Multi-User Server, what about Spectra or that webdev/cvs thing they had a few years back built off Spectra? ColdFusion and FlashCom are about the only decent server products MM has ever made - and they aquired CF when they merged with Allaire. I don't hold much hope for Flex.

Does the whole world have to friggin revolve around Macromedia? Can't there be another way to do things? Any chance Macromedia might be convinced to use LZX instead of MXML? I happen to prefer the Laszlo way of thinking myself.

Sincerely,

Bryan

BTW - did this really have to be posted in three separate forums? Enough already.

[whisperstorm]

In all honesty, efforts to create a good editor might start with an existing one that does a pretty good job right now - Eclipse. I'm sure it'd be possible to create some kind of wysiwyg editor using Eclipse's plugin architecture....

http://www.eclipse.org/vep/

[cobrabyte]

I think an alternative would be an XSLT implementation that 'converts' MXML to LZX. This would give users the opportunity to use Macromedia's IDE and then create MXML file, which would then be converted to LZX. They are both XML, so it should be a matter of converting the necessary elements and such. This would allow for faster GUI development.

Thoughts?

-Chris