Rich Internet Applications: A Free Alternative to Flash ®

Update: I’m learning that Laszlo is more of a Flex replacement than Flash, simply because both are meant for data-driven RIA’s. Flex is now open-source anyway, however, and Flex Builder 3 is available to students for free.

If developing rich internet applications sounds like an attractive feature that would look nice on your website, but you can’t afford Flash Professional (that retails for $699), perhaps it’s worth taking a look at an Open-Source alternative called Laszlo. Similar to Flash, Laszlo produces .swf files that nearly any browser can view, from a scripting language. Below is a screenshot of the Calendar Demo produced using Laszlo*:

Screen clipping taken: 12/30/2007, 4:28 PM

One intuitive demo, the OpenLaszlo Explorer, teaches the basics of Laszlo’s Scripting language visually, step by step. From displaying a simple, “Hello World” to advanced features such as animation, data basing, methods & events, drag and drop, etc. This can also be used for writing and testing simple code of your own, since I soon found out that compiling an application is a little more involved.

 

Screen clipping taken: 12/30/2007, 4:34 PM

One might be surprised at first after downloading the hefty 32.7 MB file from Laszlo’s homepage to find that it is simply a server that runs on Tomcat, and that (unlike its commercial counterpart) there is no fancy IDE. Although I was a little disheartened at first, after a little Googling, I found a plug-in for the Eclipse IDE that allows drag-and-drop visual development called Spket IDE. So far I’ve found it satisfactory for designing the .lzx files that Laszlo uses.

 

These files with the .LZX extension are simply special XML files that, somewhat like java source code, is interpreted by the server and displayed at runtime. In order to “run” the files, the Laszlo server must be started in the background.

 

The “URL method” of compiling your file is to point your web-browser to http://127.0.0.1/8080/lps-4.0.7/my-apps/myapp.lzx (replace “4.0.7″ with the version you are using, and “myapp” with the filename of your source file), but this requires you to copy and paste the source file into a subdirectory of /lps-4.0.7 in order to launch it from your web browser. A much easier way to 1) launch the server, and then 2) copy your source code into the corresponding “edit code” box in OpenLaszlo Explorer.

Click here to open the tutorial in your web browser.

For the simple little snippets of code that you will produce trying Laszlo, this should be sufficient. Unfortunately, it is going to take some digging around in the extensive documentation and experimenting with Eclipse to come up with a comfortable way to code, compile, and execute/debug the applications. I’ll post more on that as I experiment in-depth.

I am always excited when an Open-Source alternative for an expensive commercial application is developed, but I very, very, excited about Laszlo’s potential as a useful tool in modern web development.

Laszlo’s Homepage: http://www.openlaszlo.org

As a last note, if you are curious (or Laszlo’s features are not enough to meet your needs), you can watch a video of Flash’s features here: http://www.adobe.com/products/flash/ssi/iframe/feature_tour.html

*Many more impressive demos can be viewed at:
http://www.openlaszlo.org/demos