OpenLaszlo

Its a free open-source programming language alternative to FLEX

Its a new uprising technology to create so called Rich Internet Applications (RIA's), where the weapon of choice is Flash.

Quick facts about OpenLaszlo

• OpenLaszlo is a similar to FLEX using XML and JavaScript, but the only difference is, its based on the idea of open source 
• It can create both, Flash and DHTML/AJAX
• OpenLaszlo goes down to Flash5, FLEX supports only version 7 and higher
• It is coming for mobile applications using Sun's JavaME technology

Costs
Unlike FLEX, the user won't have to pay any money for neither the development server nor any IDE, which makes OpenLaszlo a quite nice alternative. All you need to develop Laszlo applications is the application server and an editor like notepad.


Flash or DHTML/AJAX output

OL can compile your code into either swf or transform the xml into clean DHTML/AJAX (html+javascript). This is probably the most astonishing feature in OpenLaszlo since both, the flash and the DHTML/AJAX version, have exactly the same look and feel.

FLEX vs OpenLaszlo

Which is better. FLEX or Laszlo? Where are the differences? What do they have in common ? Which is the right one for users?

First of all, both have a lot in common like the xml based syntax, the component model, javascript/actionscript and the modularity for additional third party code.

• License policy

Its open source ie. Laszlo is completely free of charge. You won't have to pay for anything while Adobe charges at least for the FLEX IDE which is a quite nice tool for developers.

• Popularity

After the assimilation of Macromedia by Adobe many common and well known web development applications like Dreamweaver or Flash belong to the creator of Photoshop, which makes it very easy to reach a wide popularity for their new products FLEX and AIR. Laszlo on the other side is only well known by insiders of the scene who seek for alternatives. Laszlo Systems, the creators of OpenLaszlo don't have the financial power like Adobe to run big advertisement campaigns. This leads to a big problem: The less a development platform is known, the fewer developers will produce code for third party plugins and modules. While there are quite a lot of pre-made scripts and modules out there for FLEX, the laszlo developer will have to build a lot by own hand.

• Compatibility

An  advantage of openlaszlo is the ability to let the developer and the user choose whether to use a Flash version or the DHTML or AJAX. This helps to the compatibility problems with users, who don't have an updated version of their flash plugin installed or maybe no plugin at all. Laszlo developers have the big advantage at this point to simply transform their code into DHTML/AJAX code, which should work in every more or less modern browser.






Next : Setting up Openlaszlo development environment