Macromedia Flex

If you’ve spent any time, as I have over the last year or so, working with Flash as the presentation layer for Java-based webapps, keeping as much of your ActionScript as possible in text files so that you can integrate these with your version control system along with your other source files, and wishing you didn’t have to use the Flash authoring tool to compile your movies, Flex (formerly Royale), a “standards-based programming methodology for building the presentation tier of Rich Internet Applications” from Macromedia (now in beta) might just be what you’re looking for.