Using a plain Flex UI theme to show clients before styling

The default Flex 2 Aeon theme looks fairly polished and showing it to clients in the early stages of a project can have it’s disadvantages. For example a client may believe the project is closer to release than it is or if you use Adobe Flex for prototyping may believe that the default theme represents the final look and feel.

If you intend to customise the chrome of a flex app, showing a client the default look and feel not only leads the client into a false expectation of the finish product but, if the app is purely a prototype, may make a case for it being used for the foundation of production code or prevent an further exploration in to the visual design.

Ted Patrick has provided an excellent technique to overcome this.

Using Ted’s example you can strip all chrome from the UI components and then effectively build an interactive wireframe for your app which can then be styled / disgarded without any preconceptions on the client’s behalf.

Ted provides the sources for his example which also includes the CSS to strip the Halo theme’s chrome from the UI controls.

For more information:

• Ted’s Article on Managing UI Development Expectations with Flex
• Ted on Flex Blog