En route between Madrid, Spain and Paris, France, Lee Brimelow and I got into a somewhat philosophical conversation around why the HTML features are important to Flash developers. The obvious standout is in being able to render HTML content in all its glory. Is there anything beyond that though? What about the script-bridge feature? Being able to reach into the HTML DOM and manipulate it from JavaScript? What we came up with was a visually interesting, if not entirely useful example. (more…)
As I was hanging out in Madrid, getting acclimated for the AIR Europe Tour, I started thinking about what I was going to present - specifically around script bridging. In the United States, I just talked about how Flash and HTML are separate, but can be integrated. I though it would be good to actually show how separate they are in the browser, and contrast that with how integrated they are in Adobe AIR. Several hours spent exploring ideas, and a new demonstration was born. (more…)
Two very quiet, yet very important announcements came last week for developers using Adobe AIR. The first is a new “Introspector” for AIR developers using Ajax - think Firebug, but for AIR. The second is an update to Aptana Studio (1.1 required) which provides support for AIR Beta 3. Here’s a quick look at both these updates which should prove very beneficial to those with an HTML workflow. (more…)
HTML 5 introduces a new canvas element which comes along with a graphics context based on Quartz 2D. This means that JavaScript developers can draw paths, fill and clip (mask) shapes, transform bitmaps, and even provide basic animation in addition to other operations. The similarities to the ActionScript Drawing API (especially in ActionScript 3) are striking, so I couldn’t resist playing around. (more…)
Every new update to Adobe AIR means one thing for me - a lot of additional work. When I first started putting together samples for the AIR Pocket Guide, it never occurred to me that I’d have to revisit them time and again. What started as a couple dozen examples has also now grown to be over forty (40) AIR samples, to include a number of full applications. That being said, I’m happy to announce that the samples update for AIR Beta 3 is complete, and are available for download. (more…)
AIR Beta 3 is an exciting release that takes us one step closer to AIR 1.0. Unlike the myriad of changes introduced in the move from AIR Beta 1 to AIR Beta 2, the changes in AIR Beta 3 are far more subtle. While this stability indicates the growing maturity of the product, AIR Beta 3 is an update and will require some changes to your applications. You can read the release notes of course, but in the progress of updating my forty-plus AIR applications, here are the common changes that I encountered. (more…)
As a general rule, I try only to post content involving source code on my blog. I have been known to leave long comments however, and that’s exactly what happened yesterday when I read Richard Leggett’s blog post on the future of Ajax. I have nothing but the utmost respect for Richard, but I thought this particular post could use some rounding out. After some consideration, what follows is that comment turned blog post. (more…)
There was an interesting post on Ajaxian last week about a testing utility for XMLHttpRequest. Kris Zyp had written RESTTest for his own uses and talked about it during his session at The Ajax Experience. There were requests to make his utility openly available, so he did just that. The comments on the post point to other such utilities; all of which I have problems with that Adobe AIR can solve. (more…)
The first MAX Europe has come and gone, and I’m super-thrilled to have been a part of it. I had a number of hands-on presentations, all around developing and deploying AIR applications. I also had two speaking sessions, one on using Aptana for AIR development, and one on script-bridging with AIR. Following is a recap of the session contents for each, and any assets that were created. (more…)
It is unfortunate but true that the HTML control in AIR Beta 2 does not yet support Flash content. Depending on the requirements of your application however, you shouldn’t let this stop you from using Flash content in your HTML-based AIR application. Huh? It’s important to remember that the HTML control is integrated, and indeed part of the very display pipe that is the Flash Player in AIR. To demonstrate this I put together a very simply Flash Video (FLV) player using HTML, JavaScript and AIR. (more…)