Editing Adobe Flash (section)

=== Rich Internet Applications ===
{{Main|Rich Internet application}}
After Flash 5 introduced ActionScript in 2000, developers combined the visual and programming capabilities of Flash to produce interactive experiences and applications for the Web.<ref name="flex3dummies">{{cite book |last=McCune |first=Doug |date=2009-02-23 |title=Adobe Flex 3.0 For Dummies |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=lazbXwrxrasC |publisher=John Wiley & Sons |isbn=978-0470436820|page=Chapter 1, "From HTML to RIA"}}</ref> Such Web-based applications eventually became known as "Rich Internet Applications"<ref name="flex3dummies" /> and later "Rich Web Applications".<ref name=":02">{{Cite web |url=http://download.macromedia.com/pub/flash/whitepapers/richclient.pdf |title=Macromedia Flash MX—A next-generation rich client |access-date=January 21, 2024 |archive-date=November 12, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201112181736/http://download.macromedia.com/pub/flash/whitepapers/richclient.pdf |url-status=live }}</ref>

In 2004, Macromedia Flex was released, and specifically targeted the application development market.<ref name="flex3dummies"/> Flex introduced new [[user interface]] components, advanced [[data visualization]] components, data remoting, and a modern IDE (Flash Builder).<ref name="flex3dummies"/><ref name="dvfb">{{cite book |last=Rocchi |first=Cesare |date=2011 |title=Data Visualization with Flash Builder |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=iOOD9ttmbDEC |publisher=Focal Press |isbn=978-0240815039 }}</ref> Flex competed with [[Ajax (programming)|Asynchronous JavaScript and XML]] (AJAX) and [[Microsoft Silverlight]] during its tenure.<ref name="flex3dummies"/> Flex was upgraded to support integration with remote data sources, using [[Action Message Format|AMF]], [[BlazeDS]], [[Adobe LiveCycle]], [[Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud]], and others.<ref name="enterpriseflex">{{cite book |last=Fain |first=Yakov |date=2010-03-16 |title=Enterprise Development with Flex: Best Practices for RIA Developers |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=kjCaK4jXOJEC |publisher=O'Reilly Media, Inc |isbn=978-1449388737 }}</ref>

Between 2006 and 2016, the [[Speedtest.net]] web service conducted over 9.0 billion speed tests with a utility built with Adobe Flash.<ref name="test">{{cite web|url=https://speedtest.net/|title=Speedtest.net by Ookla – The Global Broadband Speed Test|access-date=October 24, 2016|archive-date=January 29, 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210129155654/https://www.speedtest.net/|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>[https://support.speedtest.net/hc/en-us/articles/203845270-What-are-the-requirements-to-use-Speedtest-net- What are the requirements to use Speedtest.net?] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161025054543/https://support.speedtest.net/hc/en-us/articles/203845270-What-are-the-requirements-to-use-Speedtest-net- |date=October 25, 2016 }}, Speedtest.net</ref> In 2016, the service shifted to HTML5 due to the decreasing availability of Adobe Flash Player on PCs.<ref>[https://thenextweb.com/apps/2015/12/07/the-worlds-most-popular-internet-speed-test-finally-drops-adobe-flash/ The world's most popular internet speed test finally drops Adobe Flash] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181215123532/https://thenextweb.com/apps/2015/12/07/the-worlds-most-popular-internet-speed-test-finally-drops-adobe-flash/ |date=December 15, 2018 }}, The Next Web, Owen Williams, 7 December 2015</ref>

Developers could create [[rich internet application]]s and [[browser plugin]]-based [[applet]]s in ActionScript 3.0 programming language with [[integrated development environment|IDEs]], including Adobe Flash Builder, FlashDevelop and [[Powerflasher FDT]]. Flex applications were typically built using [[List of Flex frameworks|Flex frameworks]] such as PureMVC.<ref name="enterpriseflex"/>