MXML

The bottom line is none of the frameworks is doing enough to leverage the declarative nature of MXML.

We begin by describing the mappings between the WSDL definition and the MXML web services declaration that are common to any WSDL file.

Up until this point, we focused on defining the MXML elements needed to invoke a web services operation.

Now open your command prompt, navigate to the project folder, and compile the MXML source file once more.

In other words, being able to do more in MXML means that less ActionScript code is required.

Mate is a Flex framework that leverages the tag-based MXML language to provide a map defining how the Flex application handles events.

All this is done in MXML, which means that your configuration is also the actual wiring of your application.

Switching back to the Source view, you'll see the MXML code that has been generated by the builder, as shown in Listing 1.

We mentioned in the previous section that Web services can be declared in MXML using a parameter binding mechanism.

These include MXML elements and attributes which values are independent of the specific SOAP binding settings.

It lets you configure your application declaratively in MXML and does most of the boring things for you.

Flex provides a rich MXML extensive class library for visual components, containers, and remote service objects and data models.

Listing 10 shows the code we used to include an embedded font declaration in the application DataGridDeveloperExample1. mxml file.

The root element of an MXML document is a subclass of the Application class.

Data binding elsewhere in the MXML code automatically handles the data returned by the list and retrieve calls.

For the UI, the main application file (main. mxml) contains only the reference to the main EventMap and to the view.

MXML, a declarative XML-based language, is used to represent UI layout and behaviors, and each MXML file is a separate component.

These components are placed in files with an . mxml extension.

For all practical purposes, there are few instances in which directly embedding style information into an MXML file makes sense.

Using Mate, the mxml view definitions become really simple and uncluttered with anything but the view code.

The first step in declaring a Web service using MXML is to select the Web services WSDL definition.

Because both MXML and ActionScript are text-based, a standard text editor and the Flex SDK are all you need to create Flash applications.

Go to that directory at the command prompt and run the batch file with the mxml filename as the argument.

At the end, a simple 8 lines of code MXML file is shown for rendering the UI and to demonstrate the clean UI design.

Open a plain text editor (Notepad will do fine) and enter the code in Listing 1, saving the file as hello. mxml in your hello folder.

Save the view as an MXML file in the views folder as DetailView. mxml.

Second, once you've written a Flex application, you compile the code using the MXML compiler.

Issue the following command to compile the application source code: mxmlc microblog. mxml.

As my Flex skills progress, I am developing an appreciation for the beauty of MXML.

Building a Flex app consists of compiling the . mxml files into . SWF files, using the mxmlc tool.

Now compile the application using the command: mxmlc microblog. mxml.

Open microblog. mxml and change it so it matches the code in Listing 5.

In this section, you only need to care about the main file, TODOListFlex. mxml.

This will create an xmldg. mxml file that has an tag in it.

In general, the XML elements map to WSDL or Schema constructs and the MXML bindings refer to variables in the scope of the

A declarative XML UI language known as MXML

Defining the application user interface in MXML

In other words, the command for compiling the source code is once again: mxmlc microblog. mxml