Flex 3.0 Applications with BlazeDS in Eclipse

February 16, 2009

Creating a Flex project with BlaxeDS in Eclipse

To start with first of all we will have to install BlaseDS. BlaseDS is a Zip file. Just unzip the file to a folder. The unzipped folder will contain a ‘.war’ file called ‘blaseds.war’. Install flex plugin along with Eclipse SDK (Not covered in this artical). Now we are ready to go.

1. Launch Adobe Flex Builder 3 Eclipse Launcher.

2. Choose File > New . Click on Others for the New Wizard to open. From the new wizard click on ‘Flex Builder’ to expand the options under Flex Builder node. Select ‘Flex Project’ as shown in the below figure.

3. Next the wizard leads to the following screen where you have to enter the project name, select the application type and also select the application server type. Here ‘FlexBeat’ is given as the project name. Since we are going to develop Flex web application i have selected the first option that is ‘Web application’. Since we are going to use Java server side I have selected application server type as ‘J2EE’.

3. Once server type is selected as J2EE, then make sure the below check box (Use remote object access) is checked and Life Cycle Data Service option is selected. Leave the rest as it is. then click on Next(see the figure below for reference).

4. Now its time to configure a J2EE server for the project we are creating.

If you already have a server configured in your work space you can use the same as Target run time or create a new one.
To create a new one click on New button near Target Runtime(Creating a target runtime is out of scope of this document). See the below figure for reference.
Select the server for Target runtime. Then the wizard expects the user to select the Flex war file location. In our case BlaseDS is the flex war file to be selected.
Once the war file is selected you can leave the rest of the wizard settings as it is and finish the wizard. Once you click on finish the flex builder will ask if you want to change the persepective to flex as shown below.
5. Now Flex Project is created and the IDE will open up the main application. ie., the main mxml file named in the same name as the project created by you. Here, our main application mxml file will be FlexBeat.mxml. This file is opened in the editior’s source view. see the figure below.