Can't browse to MXML files?

Question

I am new to Flex. I've installed the Flex Data Services and
the ColdFusion MX 7 updater 2 on my server (windows 2k).
But when I browse to my sample .mxml file in my web browser
(firefox), I just get prompted to save the file to my computer -
the server isn't rendering it. I am able to compile the mxml file
on my local machine using mxmlc.exe, but I thought I was supposed
to be able to just browse directly to the files, too, and have the
server compile it into flash?

Answer 1

quote:
Originally posted by:
ntsiii
"but it can also compile for you when you request a *.mxml
file through the web server"
Can you point me to where this is covered in the documents? I
frankly do not believe it, but am prepared to be proven wrong.
Tracy
From the flex2_gettingstarted.pdf document:
Working with a web server
Your development and deployment environments typically
include a web server, where you
use the web server to return a Flex SWF file in response to a
user request. You use one of the
following types of web servers:
■ Simple web server
A simple web server only responds to static page requests to
simple HTML pages. In this
case, you precompile your Flex applications and write a
wrapper that embeds your Flex
application’s SWF file in an HTML page.
56 Building a Flex Application
■Web application server
A web application server, such as JRun, ColdFusion, or PHP,
can dynamically generate
pages that host your Flex applications. In this case, you can
take advantage of the
application server’s available tag libraries and
processing language to dynamically create a
wrapper for your Flex application. However, you must
precompile your Flex application
before deploying it to this type of server. You can use any
type of server, and not just a Java
application server, to serve up Flex applications, as long as
you precompile that application
and that application does not use the services available with
Flex Data Services.
■ J2EE application server or servlet container
You require a J2EE application server or servlet container,
such as JRun, Tomcat, or
WebSphere, to run Flex Data Services. You typically
precompile your Flex applications
before deploying them on a server running Flex Data Services.
However, during
development you can request a Flex application’s MXML
file in the browser to compile
the Flex application at run time. This invokes the web-tier
compiler which generates a
wrapper and returns a compiled SWF file.