Integrating Spring Flex

Looking for better Adobe BlazeDS and Java platform integration, I would like to recommend one very useful project from SpringSource portfolio: Spring Flex (or Spring BlazeDS integration). It's pretty easy to start with and, moreover, you could integrate it with other projects like Spring Framework and Spring Security.

Let's start with simple configuration.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<beans xmlns="http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans"
  xmlns:context="http://www.springframework.org/schema/context"
  xmlns:flex="http://www.springframework.org/schema/flex"
  xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
  xsi:schemaLocation="
      http://www.springframework.org/schema/context
      http://www.springframework.org/schema/context/spring-context-2.5.xsd  
      http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans
      http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans/spring-beans-2.5.xsd
      http://www.springframework.org/schema/flex
      http://www.springframework.org/schema/flex/spring-flex-1.0.xsd">

   <context:annotation-config />   
   <context:component-scan base-package="org.example.flex" />
   
   <flex:message-broker id="_messageBroker" services-config-path="/WEB-INF/flex/services-config.xml">
       <flex:message-service default-channels="default-amf, secure-amf" />     
   </flex:message-broker> 
  
</beans>

Basically, those few lines of code do all routine work to start Adobe BlazeDS MessageBroker servlet (to handle AMF protocol), publish your classes (annotated as @RemotingDestination) as remote objects to be accessible by Flex clients.

Adobe BlazeDS configuration, referenced here as /WEB-INF/flex/services-config.xml is pretty standard. It includes bare minimum enough to run simple application.

• /WEB-INF/flex/services-config.xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<services-config>
    <services>
        <service-include file-path="remoting-config.xml" />
        <service-include file-path="proxy-config.xml" />
        <service-include file-path="messaging-config.xml" />     

     <default-channels>
         <channel ref="default-amf"/>
     </default-channels>
    </services>

    <channels>
        <channel-definition id="default-amf" class="mx.messaging.channels.AMFChannel">
            <endpoint url="http://{server.name}:{server.port}/{context.root}/messagebroker/amf/" class="flex.messaging.endpoints.AMFEndpoint"/>
        </channel-definition>

        <channel-definition id="secure-amf" class="mx.messaging.channels.SecureAMFChannel">
            <endpoint url="https://{server.name}:9400/{context.root}/messagebroker/amfsecure/" class="flex.messaging.endpoints.SecureAMFEndpoint"/>
        </channel-definition>
    </channels>
</services-config>

• /WEB-INF/flex/messaging-config.xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<service id="message-service" class="flex.messaging.services.MessageService">
    <adapters>
        <adapter-definition id="actionscript" class="flex.messaging.services.messaging.adapters.ActionScriptAdapter" default="true"/>
        <adapter-definition id="jms" class="flex.messaging.services.messaging.adapters.JMSAdapter" />
    </adapters>
</service>

• /WEB-INF/flex/remoting-config.xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<service id="remoting-service" class="flex.messaging.services.RemotingService">
    <adapters>
        <adapter-definition id="java-object" class="flex.messaging.services.remoting.adapters.JavaAdapter" default="true"/>
    </adapters>
</service>

• /WEB-INF/flex/proxy-config.xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<service id="proxy-service" class="flex.messaging.services.HTTPProxyService">
    <properties>
        <connection-manager>
            <max-total-connections>100</max-total-connections>
            <default-max-connections-per-host>2</default-max-connections-per-host>
        </connection-manager>
        <allow-lax-ssl>true</allow-lax-ssl>
    </properties>

    <adapters>
        <adapter-definition id="http-proxy" class="flex.messaging.services.http.HTTPProxyAdapter" default="true"/>
        <adapter-definition id="soap-proxy" class="flex.messaging.services.http.SOAPProxyAdapter"/>
    </adapters>

    <destination id="DefaultHTTP">
     <properties>
         <url>/{context.root}/default.jsp</url>
     </properties>
    </destination>
</service>

Configuration part is done. Let's create a simple remote object class.

package org.example.flex;

import org.springframework.flex.remoting.RemotingDestination;
import org.springframework.stereotype.Service;

@Service
@RemotingDestination( value = "simpleService", channels = { "default-amf", "secure-amf" } )
public class SimpleService {
    public Boolean test() {
 return Boolean.TRUE;
    }
}

That's it! SimpleService is declared as simple POJO with @RemotingDestination annotation and will be discovered by Spring configuration and automatically published as remote object for "default-amf" and "secure-amf" channels.

Integrating Spring Security is again just a few configuration lines. Here is an example:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<beans xmlns="http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans"
  xmlns:security="http://www.springframework.org/schema/security"
  xmlns:context="http://www.springframework.org/schema/context"
  xmlns:flex="http://www.springframework.org/schema/flex"
  xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
  xsi:schemaLocation="
 http://www.springframework.org/schema/context
 http://www.springframework.org/schema/context/spring-context-2.5.xsd  
 http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans
 http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans/spring-beans-2.5.xsd
 http://www.springframework.org/schema/flex
 http://www.springframework.org/schema/flex/spring-flex-1.0.xsd
 http://www.springframework.org/schema/security 
 http://www.springframework.org/schema/security/spring-security-3.0.xsd">

    <context:annotation-config />   
    <context:component-scan base-package="org.example.flex" />

    <bean id="authenticationProvider" class="org.example.flex.CustomAuthenticationProvider" /> 

    <security:authentication-manager alias="authenticationManager">
        <security:authentication-provider ref="authenticationProvider" />  
    </security:authentication-manager> 
  
    <flex:message-broker id="_messageBroker" services-config-path="/WEB-INF/flex/services-config.xml">
       <flex:message-service default-channels="default-amf, secure-amf" />     
       <flex:secured authentication-manager="authenticationManager" />        
    </flex:message-broker>   
</beans>

Spring Flex also provides a bunch of interesting features such as exception translators. It worthwhile to look at this project if you are developing Flex applications with Adobe BlazeDS.

On the wave of RIA, Adobe Flex and Java

This post will be not very technical but I would like to share some of my experience related to Internet applications development.

It's quite a few years I have been involved into web applications development. I started from PHP, then moved to ASP.NET, then to JSF, then AJAX diluted all that stuff, and finally I moved to Adobe Flex. The trend is obvious: web applications must be as closed to desktop counterparts as possible. Adobe Flex is really cool, very coooool ... I didn't play with Microsoft Silverlight and JavaFX too much but it all about the same.

As more reach become web applications, more features are requested from them. For developers it's a whole new world to explore. My current project is built on top of Adobe Flex and Java. It worth-while to say that Adobe Flex and Java integrates very good via BlazeDS (opensource) or LCDS (commercial) bridges. SpringSource provides excellent support for Flex and BlazeDS development by means of Spring BlazeDS integration project.

What all this is about... Development of RIA on top of Java platform is a challenge which requires from developer to engage the whole new technology stack. It's something which couldn't be done using pure Java platform. JavaFX is coming, but too late. Will it be successful?

Nevertheless, I would like to encourage developers to consider Adobe Flex as part of your next web project. It's worthwhile the time you will spend on it.