So far, I've used Flex to deliver half a dozen applications to my customers. These apps are all out there in the wild, live and in use by real users. Flex is much more than a play thing for me.

Of these six apps, one was a company organisation chart (a customised version of iLog's Elixir components), another was a Web Service front-end emulator for a point of sale system. Two very specific apps. The other four however were all reporting systems.

Flex For Data Reporting

For me, Flex seems best suited when used as a reporting interface for "back-end" data that, more often than not, comes from an HTML front-end.

As a typical example, one of the applications I wrote had a traditional HTML form at the front-end. The webpage was publically available for anybody to come along, fill in their details and request a free voucher.

The HTML form part of the project was all very simple.

What would have been the hard part, had I not used Flex, is creating the back-end administration interface for all the requests. Somewhere for the site owners to view, accept, deny requests, manage voucher codes etc etc.

Flex Makes it Easy

It's not that it's particularly hard to create an admin interface in traditional HTML. It's just that it would be time-consuming and cumbersome to design the interface and then decide on a JavaScript library and CSS framework to use, tie all the user actions to the back end via Ajax etc etc etc.

With Flex it's a breeze to knock up an interface to it all. At its most simple you just add an AdvancedDataGrid control and tie it (via an HTTPService) to the XML feed of requests from the backend. Then you start the fun part of adding the buttons, filters, charts etc that turn a "view" in to a fully-functional app. All that in a fraction of the time it would take in HTML (and dare I say it, xPages?). Add in the fact a vanilla Flex app looks way, way better than a vanilla HTML/xPages app and it's a definite winner every time. Trust me, customers love it.

Knowing When To Use Flex

Now you might be thinking I could have done the whole thing in Flex and used it on the public-facing web form. This is where you need to use caution with Flex.

Although I love Flex I don't want to fall in to the "when all you have is a hammer..." trap and use for absolutely everything.

Where I tend to use Flex is for apps with a limited and defined audience, such as the administrators of the above voucher request system. In that case about 3 or 4 people who I knew to have Flash installed.

While Flash player is, apparently, installed on +95% of browsers (??) that shouldn't be taken as the green light to go using it willy nilly. Use it when you know your audience and when a traditional HTML solution wouldn't suffice and/or be easier in the first place.

Example Reporting Interface

Next post (tomorrow perhaps) I'll show an example of how powerful Flex can be at visualizing backend data. In it I'll offer a fresh take on the concept of categorised views!

If anybody fancies proving me wrong about a) being able to do it in xPages and b) doing it faster then see the next entry for what your goal is. I'd be interested to see if xPages were up to it.