CS5 - Flex UI plug-in using a C++ model backend plug-in

Question

Hi,
I'm new to InDesign CS4/CS5 plug-in development and been given the task of coming up with a plug-in equivalent to one done for QuarkXPress 8.
In the CS4 SDK there were two samples for the FlexUIStroke plug-in. One was a pure Flex/scripting sample and the other was a combination of Flex and C++. The latter was useful for showing how C++ source code could interface with Flex. In the CS5 SDK (build 335) the C++ sample has been removed.
The Flex/scripting sample has been rewritten for use with CS Extension Builder under Flash Builder 4. I've quickly tested this using CSEB and it is a really handy tool for creating, installing and debugging InDesign extensions using Flex panels.
In CS5, Adobe state the importance of model/UI separation as the former permits multiple threads. By this I assume that a separate thread in the model plug-in can manipulate a document. I like the idea purely as a means of developing code where the UI is separate from a backend which loads, saves and manipulates documents. The UI can be reinstalled without changing or reinstalling the backend.
My project requires:
A panel-based user interface (using Flex).
Sockets code to listen for messages from a browser to load and save documents etc - therefore a multi-thread solution.
Code to add text and images to the document via the plug-in user interface and report back any problems to the user interface - two-way communications.
It sounds straightforward - as it was in QXP. But here's the crunch, is it possible to have a UI plug-in developed using CSEB and a model-compliant (not using WidgetBin.lib) backend developed using C++? At the moment I'm thinking I'm stuck using a "CS4" approach (single plug-in without CSEB) for the project.
 

Answer 1

This morning I added some code to a C++ plug-in to enumerate through the plug-ins installed under InDesign. The aom was to see if LoadMovieFromResource() could work. I noticed that the CSEB plug-in was not listed. Then I realized that CSEB doesn't generate plug-ins but extensions. Therefore the last few days has been a waste.
The CS SDK states that:
It is possible to combine a Creative Suite extension with a C++ plug-in to create a hybrid extension; the
tech note provides more information about how to do this.
I haven't found the tech note!
I've lost too much time on this, so my project will revert back to two C++ plug-ins (one UI and one model) where the UI plug-in loads the SWF.
Shame, I feel a real opportunity has been missed here to make plug-in development using Flex user interfaces really easy (especially debugging). Oh well may be a few SDK builds down the road, C++ plug-in using Flex user interfaces will be documented better.