IBM Lotus Domino Web applications are increasingly required to offer a high-end user experience. But the standard HTML control elements for the user interface are limited, and using JavaScript to implement charts and interactive functions like “drag and drop,” even with Ajax frameworks, is very complex. Enter Adobe Flex, a free, open-source framework for building rich Internet applications with less effort.

We’ll show how you can use Flex components to build smarter applications that tremendously improve the experience of your Notes users and Domino/Web users alike. After introducing you to the basics of Flex, we will lead you through a set of front-end use cases. By the end of the first code example, you will be able to create charts in Flex that are based on Domino data in just a few minutes. By following the second example, you’ll learn how you can integrate Flex charts in a Notes form and display them directly in the Notes client.