Cairngorm 2.2 Release Notes

What is Cairngorm

The Cairngorm Microarchitecture is a lightweight yet prescriptive framework for rich Internet application (RIA) development.

Cairngorm is an implementation of design patterns that the consultants at Adobe Consulting have successfully taken from enterprise software development (with technologies including J2EE and .NET) and applied rich Internet application development using Adobe Flex.

Cairngorm can be downloaded in binary and source forms from http://www.adobe.com/go/cairngorm. Documentation can also be downloaded from the same location.

If you wish to use Cairngorm with LiveCycle Data Services (eg, mx.data.DataService) then you should also download Cairngorm Enterprise, available at the same location. LiveCycle Data Services has a dependency on fds.swc, which does is not shipped with the standard Flex Framework, so any dependencies have been externalised to Cairngorm Enterprise.

Changes between Cairngorm 2.2 and Cairngorm 2.1

  • Removed dependency on Flex Data Services (fds.swc) - externalised to Cairngorm Enterprise
  • Flex SDK SWCs are no longer linked into Cairngorm.swc (produces a smaller cairngorm.swc)
  • Added support for setting remote credentials
  • Fixed bug with Web services not loading the WSDL (no longer any need to call loadWSDL() explicitly)
  • ModelLocator interface has been deprecated. Added com.adobe.cairngorm.model.IModelLocator
  • Added deprecation metadata for compiler support
  • Added dispatch() helper method to CairngormEvent class
  • Controller added to CairngormEventDispatcher with weak reference
  • Added removeCommand to FrontController
  • Made commands protected in FrontController (was private)

Building Cairngorm

The downloadable Cairngorm 2.2 source zip is a ready-to-use FlexBuilder project structure. To build Cairngorm, extract the zip to a known location and import it into your FlexBuilder workspace.

The source zip also contains an Ant script to Compile, generate Cairngorm.swc, generate ASDoc and package everything, but you may have to change it (or build.properties) to match your environment.

Using Cairngorm

To use the compiled Cairngorm in your Flex 2/3 application, copy Cairngorm.swc from the \bin to a location on your actionscript classpath.

What is Cairngorm Enterprise

With the release of Flex 2 and the separation of LiveCycle Data Services from the Flex Framework, there was a need to separate out those parts of Cairngorm dependent on the classes in Flex Data Management Services (fds.swc). Those parts of Cairngorm reside in Cairngorm Enterprise.

When Do I Need Cairngorm Enterprise

Generally, if you want to use any Flex Data Services, then you should include this CairngormEnterprise.swc in your application. Specifically, if you want to use the ServiceLocator to locate an instance of mx.data.DataService then you need Cairngorm Enterprise.

Building Cairngorm Enterprise with FlexBuilder 2

The downloadable Cairngorm Enterprise 2.2 source zip is a ready-to-use FlexBuilder project structure. To build Cairngorm Enterprise, extract the zip to a known location and import it into your FlexBuilder workspace.

Cairngorm Enterprise has a Flex Library path set up to find both Cairngorm (as a Library project) and fds.swc (in the ${FRAMEWORKS}\libs directory). To use FlexBuilder to compile Cairngorm Enterprise, you must copy fds.swc from your FDS SDK libs folder (<FDS_DIR>\flex_sdk_2\frameworks\libs) to your FlexBuilder SDK libs folder (<FLEXBUILDER_DIR>\Flex SDK 2\frameworks\libs).

There is also an Ant script to Compile, generate CairngormEnterprise.swc, generate ASDoc and package everything, and you will likely have to change it (or build.properties) to match your environment.

Using Cairngorm Enterprise

To use the compiled Cairngorm Enterprise in your Flex 2 application, copy CairngormEnterprise.swc from the \bin to a location on your actionscript classpath.

Download Cairngorm 2.2

Cairngorm 2.2 can be downloaded from the Downloads page.