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Popular Flex MVC frameworks

Posted on | November 13, 2008 |

pureMVC: is a lightweight framework for creating applications based upon the classic Model, View and Controller concept.

Two versions of the framework are supported with reference implementations; Standard and MultiCore.

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Cairngorm (no logo till date): is the lightweight micro-architecture for Rich Internet Applications built in Flex or AIR. A collaboration of recognized design patterns, Cairngorm exemplifies and encourages best-practices for RIA development advocated by Adobe Consulting, encourages best-practice leverage of the underlying Flex framework, while making it easier for medium to large teams of software engineers deliver medium to large scale, mission-critical Rich Internet Applications.

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Mate(Mah -ate): Mate is a tag-based, event-driven Flex framework.Mate allows you to define who is handling those events, whether data needs to be retrieved from the server, or other events need to be triggered.

In addition, Mate provides a mechanism for dependency injection to make it easy for the different parts of your application to get the data and objects they need.

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Penne:a lightweight framework for developing in Flex and Air. The released version 1.0 of The Penne Framework, is a simplified Flex and Air framework, as a second option to the popular Cairngorm Framework.

Google project: Penne

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Swiz (no logo till date): is a framework for Adobe Flex that aims to bring complete simplicity to RIA development. Swiz provides Inversion of Control, event handing, and simple life cycle for asynchronous remote methods. In contrast to other major frameworks for Flex, Swiz imposes no JEE patterns on your code, no repetitive folder layouts, and no boilerplate code on your development. Swiz represents best practices learned from the top RIA developers at some of the best consulting firms in the industry, enabling Swiz to be simple, lightweight, and extremely productive.

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easyMVC: easyMVC framework. EasyMVC is an event driven MVC framework which focuses on flexibility while not getting in the developers way. easyMVC can help you get organized quickly. Because of the low configuration and lack of boilerplate code, you can be up and running with a well organized site in very little time.

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Guasax: is an ease of use programming framework to provide ordered and scalable Flex applications.
Life cycle of guasax framework is based in the MVC pattern to take on our program actions

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Model-Glue: The Model-Glue family of frameworks support Web application developers by making the construction of Object-Oriented Web and Rich Internet Applications a straightforward process.

Through a simple implementation of Implicit Invocation and Model-View-Controller, they allow applications to be well organized without sacrificing flexibility.

Model-Glue Flex brings implicit invocation, Model-View-Controller design, and cleaner, less repetitive integration with backend services to Flex 2.0 and AIR applications.
It shuns repetitive, boilerplate code in favor of helper classes and expressive APIs.
Model-Glue is:
1. Easy to understand.
2. Streamlined.
3. Adaptable.
4. Strong but Simple.
5. Open.

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Ruboss Framework: is a dual-licensed framework: it is available under the GPL v3 (GNU General Public License v3, http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-3.0.html) or under the terms of the Ruboss Commercial License.

The goal of the Ruboss Framework is to automate much of the plumbing necessary to use Adobe Flex and Adobe AIR with Ruby on Rails. The Ruboss Framework brings the design principles and productivity of Rails to Flex development, and makes integration with RESTful Rails controllers as simple as possible.

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GLU Flexible Development Framework: is a Rich Media Community, Management System and Flexible Development Framework. It is a sophisticated, next generation rich media platform, intelligently combining a rich media community, management system and flexible development framework. GLU Flexible Development Framework is an Adobe ActionScript based Application Programming Interface (”API”)

- COMPONENTS, downloadable and ready to use,
- TUTORIALS, workfile examples,
- EXTENSIBILITY, flexibility to integrate or build upon, and
- MANAGEABILITY, directly integrated with GLU’s RMMS.

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There are a lot of debates on which framework is useful and more appropriate. I dont want to dive into that as it totally depends how sooner and faster vs how accurate and more dependable framework you want.

I will be updating this post on a regular basis and I request the developers to ping me once their new versions arrive.

Category: Flex

Comments

16 Responses to “Popular Flex MVC frameworks”

  1. TwoFace
    November 13th, 2008 @ 10:42 am

    Thank you for this info, it may be useful to have such a reference :)

  2. DavidD
    November 13th, 2008 @ 1:42 pm

    Nice list.
    But when I think about PureMVC, this is not the word lightweight that comes first to my mind ; I mean, when compared to others (Mate, Penne) which can then really be considered lightweight.
    In PureMVC, dozens and dozens of files (proxies, mediators, …) have to be built for the sake of less dependencies and “clear” separation.
    Mate provides that with far less hassle than PureMVC. And now even more with the ListenerInjector mechanism proposed in version 0.8.5.

  3. Mukul
    November 13th, 2008 @ 3:41 pm

    Thanks… this is indeeed good reference to determine which framework is best suited to a particular problem.

  4. Anand
    November 13th, 2008 @ 7:57 pm

    100% true David.. I duly agree that pureMVC is nowhere a lightweight but in comparison to its nearest competitor Cairngorm, it is. I feel saying lightweight is not related to its complexity or structure, its because it is the best de-coupled framework till date. It has almost negligible obligations from Flex framework.

    What say ?

  5. Rev. Dan
    November 14th, 2008 @ 5:59 am

    Ruboss is a promising Flex framework that it appears you’ve overlooked. On the surface Ruboss may appear to merely be a Ruby-powered Flex generator but it’s actually quite a bit more than that. I’d like to encourage you to give it a look.

  6. Anand
    November 14th, 2008 @ 7:03 am

    Thanks Dan. I seriously never knew about this framework. This is good and a must have in the list. :)

  7. DavidD
    November 14th, 2008 @ 9:22 am

    Anand> It has almost negligible obligations from Flex framework.

    Indeed, because it was first AS2 ported to AS3 and then proven to be compatible with Flex. Strong de-coupling by the means of “new” intermediates between the M, the V, and the C of MVC , this idea was in their mind even before the idea of binding and other Flex peculiarities.

    So one could say that even as solid as it is, it’s not flex-native framework. I don’t say that this is a problem. Tastes and colors are not to be discussed, as we say in french.

  8. Anand
    November 14th, 2008 @ 10:25 am

    Looking for comparison, see this,

    https://island.byu.edu/blog/159/best-flex-mvc-framework

  9. DavidD
    November 14th, 2008 @ 3:29 pm

    That’s it ! The man has pretty much nailed it, in his first sentences:
    - - - -
    The best Flex MVC framework : There isn’t one. At least not for everyone.
    That’s the bottom line and hours of googling won’t change it.
    - - - -
    It can be true for any programming language. (see java and its hundreds of frameworks/librairies/subprojects for you to choose from )

    So the tricky part is to choose and/or adapt one according to your need or your belief of how things should interact.

    And the choice can be long if there is a lot of options to compare.
    Diversity versus standardization: almost an ethical or political problem.
    So you people stop developing new frameworks , will you ?

    …I’m kidding, of course ;-)

  10. jap1968
    November 17th, 2008 @ 9:52 am

    Just a link to another framework to consider:

    http://www.jadbox.com/flashmvc/

  11. anand
    November 20th, 2008 @ 7:16 am

    http://www.flexpasta.com/index.php/2008/11/20/adobe-max-day-3/

  12. S.Didier
    January 26th, 2009 @ 9:06 pm

    Servebox.org : Maven Flex Plugin and AS Foundry Framework have been refreshed

    Since december 1st, ServeBox.org brings together Maven Flex Plugin and ActionScript Foundry projects. AS Foundry have been created in 2005. In 2007 the project turns into an open source project available on SourceForge. The new version 2.0 brings some fixes and add numerous new functionalities.

    –

    Maven Flex Plugin gives the ability to use Maven 2.0 for the flex development of applications. This plugin enable the developer to compile, unit test and generate all the action script documentation.

    ServeBox’s ActionScript Foundry (AS Foundry) is made of productivity tools and ActionScript 3/Java framework. This framework leverage the power of both universe : Flex and Java.

    Based on design patterns, the AS Foundry framework reduce the development cycle of complex applications. Indeed, you will find ready-to-use tools : data synchronization for MVC model, authorizations, internationalization, and even more ! This framework is divided into 5 libraries :

    Commons : base types and tools,
    Foundry : MVC Framework,
    AirFoundry : ASFoundry extension in order to use it with Adobe AIR.
    Toolbox : advanced toolbox (navigation, ACL, full-text search…)
    Foundry-Java-Commons : Java classes created to speed up the development cycle for the client-side (Flex) and server-side (FDS-LCDS-BlazeDS).

    Maven Flex Plugin and AS Foundry are available today under the Apache 2.0 open source license. So you may use them on commercial and open source projects.

    –

    Maven Flex Plugin : http://www.servebox.org/maven-flex-plugin/
    ActionScript Foundry : http://www.servebox.org/actionscript-foundry/

    The ServeBox.org Team.

  13. Anand
    February 10th, 2009 @ 8:15 pm

    A new comparison:
    http://www.adobe.com/devnet/flex/articles/flex_framework_print.html

    Related presentation:
    http://myflex.org/presentations/ComparingFlexFrameworks.pdf

  14. flex mvc frameworks « Fiji Ecuador Seattle Greece Montana
    May 12th, 2009 @ 4:04 am

    [...] flex mvc frameworks There’s probably already more than enough commentary out there about Flex MVC frameworks.  Instead of adding my limited knowledge to the noise, I’ll link to other discussions. http://www.anandvardhan.com/2008/11/13/popular-flex-frameworks/ [...]

  15. Binary Bob’s Blog » My MVVM in Silverlight notes
    May 19th, 2009 @ 5:15 am

    [...] liked to putter around with various frameworks for Flex like Cairngorm, MVC (and one without the Controller!), Mate which I really liked. I question why [...]

  16. Kevin
    June 12th, 2009 @ 3:38 am

    Here’s how I feel about micro-architectures that go on top of the already nimble Flex Framework… http://sdflex.org/blog/air/mvc-frameworks-for-flex

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