Table of Contents
OpenLaszlo applications are written in the LZX language and compiled to .swf files that execute in the Flash Player. This Guide explains how to make those applications available to users on the Web. The Software Developer's Guide to Laszlo Applications explains how to construct and test applications before you deploy them for general use.
This book is written for system administrators and others who are responsible for putting OpenLaszlo applications on the web.
As explained in the Architecture chapter, there are two distinct ways to deploy applications:
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Using the OpenLaszlo Server (formerly called LPS), to serve .swf files and proxy, that is, mediate the connection, between the client browser and any back-end services on the web. In this model you make available files having an .lzx or .lzo extension, which the server compiles to swf as necessary.
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SOLO .swf files, unproxied. In this model the developer simply precomiles LZX files, and deployment is trivial.
This Guide is virtually all concerned with proxied deployment. If you're deploying your OpenLaszlo application as .swf files you probably will not need to consult this manual.
Code is displayed thus: var a = f(2). Longer sections of code and other verbatim information is displayed in a separate paragraph:
An example file that spans several lines
Example programs are shown thus:
<canvas height="20"> <text>Hello World!</text> </canvas>
Some example programs are run within the page. The running application is shown first, followed by the application source code, followed by an Edit button that allows you to try out the effect of making changes to the application source code.
<canvas height="20"> <text>Hello World!</text> </canvas>
In addition to this Administrator's Guide, please see also
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The Software Developer's Guide to Laszlo Applications, the comprehensive explanation of how to write and test OpenLaszlo programs.
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The User Interface Designer's Guide to Laszlo Applications, which addresses aspects of the Laszlo platform that are of special interest to UI and graphic designers
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The LZX Reference Manual. This online, hyperlinked, comprehensive reference for LZX contains entries for each LZX tag and API. Its format will be familiar to users of JavaDoc(tm) and similar systems.
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The online tutorials and sample applications at http://www.laszlosystems.com/demos provide a hands-on instructional overview of the LZX language.
The best way to learn any programming language is to draw upon the experience and goodwill of its development community (and to write code! as the saying goes, nobody learned to ride a bicycle by reading about it). The LZX developer community has a home at http://www.laszlosystems.com/developers/forums/. There you will find an active discussion of all aspects of the language, and a place to ask questions of your own.