There has been some interesting developments combining Drupal and Flex. Drupal is an excellent CMS (Content Management System), while Flex is a great technology for building RIA (Rich Internet Applications). Using Drupal as a backend and Flex as a frontend, it’s possible to achieve outstanding results.
An alternative to Flex is AJAX. JavaScript libraries are becoming mature, and since JavaScript interpretation is native to browsers, the use of AJAX is an attractive solution. One fine example of what can be accomplished with AJAX is the Ext JS library. With Ext, it’s possible to emulate quite nicely a Desktop on the Web.
To create a Web Desktop using Drupal as a backend and Ext as a frontend, we need to use the Services module. The Services module allows a Drupal site to provide Web services via multiple interfaces while using the same callback code. The AMFPHP module may be used by Flex applications, while the JSON server module may be used by Ext applications.
I’m also eating my own dogfood by using the JSON server module for AIR ( http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/air/ ) applications.
That way, instead of emulating a Desktop on the web, you emulate the web on your Desktop.
I think you should check it out.
P.S. Ext is the recommended JavaScript library for AIR anyway
Hi Dmitri,
Thanks for the reference!
This web/desktop boundary is very interesting! AIR seems to provide a pretty good integration. I suspect that in a near future users won’t be able to tell the difference. And perhaps neither will developers!
Best regards,
Nick