Let's face it - users love to bookmark things; a feature we have all learned to love and hate. As RIA/Flex developers we have had to embrace this navigational short coming... with the hope that Adobe would throw us a bone. Flex 3 has landed... ARF!

So... here is the skinny on a sweet feature Adobe calls 'Deep Linking.' It helps if you say that last sentence with a 'big' voice.

Deep Linking revolves around the BrowserManager which keeps track of what's going on in the address bar. Essentially, the feature is akin to targets in HTML but requires a little more plumbing. When your application starts up at the application root - the BrowserManager is dormant (this is how it should work) and all URL information is blank.

[ example: deep linking - # url (root application) ]

Notice the # sign at the end of the URL. Ready to dive 'into' the application?

[ example: deep linking: #foo url ]

Notice that the # sign is followed by the text 'foo.' This is called a fragment and can be used to trigger changes in states, stacks, controls and whatnot. Ready to give this a go? Click on the next link and set a bookmark - close the window - open a new one and navigate back to your bookmark.

[ example: deep linking: #bar url ]

Cool huh? I think I just pee'd my pants a little.

[ source: deep linking in Flex 3 ]