Adobe AIR Resources for the Ajax Developer
I've been doing a fair amount of writing and developing with Adobe AIR over the past few months and just thought I'd take a moment to wrap up some of the resources I've put together. These resources are mainly for the Ajax developer, since that's what I like to develop with. It doesn't get as much air time (pardon the pun) as using Flex or Flash.
Christmas is in the AIR
Written for 24ways.org last December, this article goes through the development of a To Do list application using jQuery. It was written while AIR was in beta so there is some minor changes that would be required for it to work on 1.0.
Snoto Photo
Snoto Photo is a reference application developed using Mootools and accessing the Flickr API. The application was put together to demonstrate some of the features of accessing 3rd party services within AIR. The code structure I used is currently my favourite approach to AIR development since I think it works well for application development.
InsideRIA
InsideRIA is a blog focused on Rich Internet Applications, which inevitably covers Flash, Flex and Adobe AIR. I'll be more likely to post code snippets on that site and will link them up from my quick links (via RSS feed, if you want).
Building a common desktop application on AIR in Dreamweaver CS3
My most recent writing effort just went live over on the Adobe Devnet and is similar to the 24ways article in that it goes through the steps of building a To Do list but does it with a different approach, focusing on different technologies—namely, file associations and XML handling. While the last bit of the article is Dreamweaver-specific, the code part of it can be developed in any IDE.
Next
If you're looking for more resources, you can take a look at any AIR application. If it's an HTML-based application, the files are available in the installed folder. It's like having View Source, allowing you to peek inside and learn more about how an AIR application is built.
Anybody else diving into building an AIR application?
Conversation
I just completed "retrofitting" a trading application based in EXT JS for use as a desktop download as an AIR app, and I also used Dreamweaver to do it.
The major piece for me was utilizing the AIR Updater service, which I coded completely in JavaScript to check for the latest version of the AIR application and compare it with the existing. If the remote version was newer, it would automatically download and install the latest version.
A newly launched gallery resources site, by the maker of the EMcalculator is:
http://freshairapps.com/
Looks to be a great layout for finding the hot stuff!!
I've been meaning to do something in AIR, but am always short on time... But when I do, I'd like to also give Jaxer a test drive. That way I can code everything in HTML and javascript including the server-side code. Should be interesting.
I made my first AIR app last week (an ExtJS Grid + Form db front-end) for somewhat interesting reasons - the app is being used next week in a remote Ingienous community where internet access isn't available. (http://patspam.com/2008/tarpo)
As soon as Adobe AIR for Linux is available, I will certainly give it a try. I simply don't have the time to play around with the current alpha release of Adobe AIR for Linux.
I have just spent all week working with Air last week, I found it difficult to start with but in the end it all came together nicely