• A professional Eclipse-based IDE, unifying Adobe Flash Builder and the Force.com IDE into a highly productive environment for building any kind of Force.com app
• Online and offline data synchronization and management powered by Adobe® LiveCycle® Data Services
• A conflict resolution service
• A local data store for off line support
• Data visualizations including built-in interactive charting and animation components capable of processing large data sets
• Powerful user interface capabilities with over one hundred easily customized, reusable components, including access to motion graphics, drag and drop capabilities and more
• Templates for creating browser, or desktop applications
• The ability to develop once and deploy inside and outside of the browser

The Force.com Flex framework is the new data access and synchronization framework that ships as part of Adobe Flash Builder for Force.com. It lets you build applications that interact with Force.com data using Adobe Flex and AIR.

Force.com Flex builds on the client-side data management included in Adobe LiveCycle Data Services, but does not include the LiveCycle Data Services server-side data management functionality. Force.com Flex provides the login functionality, network detection and online and offline data synchronization, a conflict resolution service, and UI components that look and act just like data input fields on salesforce.com.

Giving users the ability to navigate, visualize and interact with information in an easy, intuitive way is a requirement for business applications as much as for the consumer web. Now that you've built your enterprise application on Force.com, you want to provide a rich experience for your users that works the way they do and helps optimize productivity and satisfaction.

Using Adobe Flash Builder for Force.com, you can easily:

• Add rich data visualizations like graphic charts to existing application screens, to help your users easily understand and analyze important customer, financial, or other business data.
• Create new application screens that aggregate and display only the data that different types of users need to see, and that allow users to interact with the data in highly visual, streamlined ways so they can do more work, faster.
• Create highly interactive user interfaces with drag-and-drop capabilities for use cases like e-commerce shopping carts, factory shift scheduling or conference agenda building.

To download and install:

1. Click through to the download page
2. Select the appropriate installer (Windows/Mac OS) and fill out the registration form
3. Run the installer after the download is complete
4. That's it!

The files installed into the environment include:

1. Eclipse 3.4.2
2. Adobe Flash Builder 4 Premium Trial Version
3. Adobe LiveCycle Data Services client-side Data Management Services libraries
4. Force.com Flex framework plug-ins

The following resources will get you up and running with Adobe Flash Builder for Force.com.

• View a demo of building a simple application to see how simple it is
• Do the Force.com Flex Quick Start Tutorial
• Download the source for the demo applications to bootstrap your own applications

• Download these demonstration applications (with source) - this pack includes AIR as well as Web apps
• Check out the Opportunity Watcher AIR application - a sample application built to showcase the features of Adobe Flash Builder for Force.com. It's a well-documented desktop application that supports online/offline behavior, alerts, charting and Chatter integration.
  • Watch a demo
  • Install the AIR application
  • Read an overview of the application
  • Download the source code
  • Read the documentation

• Force.com Flex Developer's Guide (PDF, HTML)
• Force.com Flex Quick Start Tutorial (PDF)
• API Documentation (Flex, AIR)
• Resolving Data Conflicts and Errors in Force.com Flex Apps Tip Sheet
• Understanding Data Management in Adobe Flash Builder for Force.com Applications Article

The following sites provide many additional resources such as technical documentation, training materials, video tutorials and forums to help you get started using Adobe Flash Builder and the Flex framework:

• The Adobe Developer Connection page is dedicated to Adobe Flash Builder for Force.com
• Tour de Flex: Expand what you can do with Flex with running examples of common components, effects and coding techniques
• Flex Developer Center
• Adobe AIR Developer Center
• Adobe Flash Builder 4 product web site

Use the following resources for help and support:

• Access help on the Adobe Flash Builder for Force.com Discussion Board
• Post feature requests on the IdeaExchange.
• Submit bug reports to Salesforce.com customer support by logging into your organization, and then clicking on 'Help and Training' in the upper right.