FlexLive.net

The LiveCycle Data Service ES, formerly known as the Flex Data Service, now includes an express edition free of charge. Under the license agreement, you are free to use the Data Service ES Express in a production environment, with unlimited number of connections. The only limitation is that you can only run it on a single CPU, which is sufficient for most small to medium sized projects. Here is the direct link to the download page. After you have it installed, be sure to check out the offline message queuing, automation API, and the PDF generation features.

Just this morning, Adobe unveiled LiveCycle ES, the next generation enterprise document and process management platform. The ES release is a major upgrade with countless number of new features with the underlying theme of “user engagement”.

Flex is very much embedded in the ES release. Workspace, formerly known as Form Manager, is re-written from ground up using Flex. Not to be out done, Form Designer can now generate Flex code based on PDF forms. The new unified SOA architecture makes it easier than ever to build custom RIA for LiveCycle. In fact, the new Workspace can now render and exchange data with custom Flex applications with just a few clicks.

Aside from the user experience improvements, the ES release also paid special attentions to the developers. All the LiveCycle development tools are now consolidated into a single Eclipse based IDE. The development environment is integrated with the server side to provide version control and team collaboration support. It’s just a matter of time before people start building third party LiveCycle tools as Eclipse plugins.

Can’t wait to get your hands on the new LiveCycle ES? Head over the devnet and grab the preview release.