Android Community 101: What is Flash Builder? (4.5)

Behold the great conquerer of world, the great unifier that works better than a big bar of chocolate, or so they’re hoping. This is Flash Builder 4.5, a version of the app to build apps that’ll soon create standalone Flex AIR apps that’ll work on Android, Blackberry, and Apple’s iOS, all inside the same framework! What this means, if it’s adopted by enough individuals, is that developers are about to have a whole heck of a lot easier time creating cross-platform moneymakers to turn awesome experiences into cash.

 Flash Builder is what Makes a Flash-Based Project

Of course, that’s not the only reason people make apps, right, not just for the money – but it IS a reality, developers gotta get paid, so an Action Script language-based mini-platform in Flash might well be the answer. Flash, as we know it right this moment, is primarily used for video inside browser windows – people might argue that it’s attempting to fan out, and that it HAS fanned out, but the main functionality remains inside video. What this version of Flash Builder will be doing is encouraging developers to create apps that’ll run on essentially any platform that can work with a Flash plugin, or in the desktop’s case, Flex AIR.

PHP and Further Integration

This newest version of Flash Builder, there’s also support for PHP (another scripting language) that’ll allow developers to have PHP on their side, Flash on the user’s side, and this new development environment in between. This newest version of Flash Builder has also moved on to Eclipse version 3.6.1 (Helios) – Eclipse being another environment in which a developer of Android apps can create, edit, fix, and generally go wild. Have a peek at this official video from Adobe on this brand new version of the creator of Flash worlds:

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Adobe And Zend Launch Flash Builder 4.5 For PHP Development

Adobe and Zend Technologies, the PHP distribution company, are announcing Flash Builder 4.5 for PHP software, a new integrated product aimed at helping PHP developers create rich Internet applications for mobile, Web and desktop leveraging the Flash Platform.

Zend, which has been working with Adobe since 2008, offers its own distribution of PHP, the popular open-source scripting language for Web applications, and sells software and support services around the language.

The Flash Builder 4.5 for PHP gives developers a single code base for applications for Android, Blackberry Tablet OS and iOS while sharing code from Web applications. Adobe Flash Builder 4.5 for PHP includes an integrated copy of Zend Studio 8, which allows developers to develop Flash based applications within a single environment. Specifically, the integrated software offers a single UI framework to create Flex and PHP projects for desktop and mobile and the ability to connect to PHP services and generate ActionScript value objects.

The combination of the two frameworks in one suite is powerful, says Zend CEO Andi Gutmans. Adobe says that more than 131 million smartphones are expected to have Flash Player installed by the end of the year. And PHP is the leading language for public facing web applications, says Gutmans.

It’s good to see Zend back on the mend, after a rough patch a few years ago.

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