Accessibility

Table of Contents

  1. Introduction
  2. Thinking beyond the browser
  3. Getting started with Adobe AIR
  4. Leveraging native integration
  5. Bridging scripts and technologies

Introducing Adobe AIR for Ajax developers

Getting started with Adobe AIR

To build an Adobe AIR application, the web developer needs the Adobe AIR runtime and software development kit (SDK). Both of these items can be downloaded from the first page of this article. With those tools in hand, the next step is to create an HTML document that presents the desired user interface (UI). The HTML document may leverage any number of JavaScript features to include existing frameworks, but it can also now leverage the various Adobe AIR API features.

<html>
	    <head>
	   
	    <title>My First AIR Application<title>
	    
	    </head>
	        <body>
	       
	        Hello world, from AIR!
	       
	        </body>
</html>

The code above is included in the provided sample files folder as hello.html. With the application finished, it is time to describe it to Adobe AIR. This takes the form of an XML file. You can copy and paste an example of the XML file from the template supplied with the SDK. The descriptor file tells Adobe AIR whether or not to use system chrome, if the background of the application should be transparent, what icons the operating system (OS) should use to represent the application, what file extensions to register with the OS and more. If you would like to follow along, open application.xml in the provided sample files folder.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
<application xmlns="http://ns.adobe.com/air/application/1.0">

   <id>com.example.ExampleApplication</id>
   <name>My First AIR Application</name>
   <version>1.0</version>
   <filename>Example Application</filename>
   <description>A web application on the desktop.</description>
   
   <initialWindow>
                 
     <content>index.html</content>
     <title>My First AIR Application</title>
     <systemChrome>standard</systemChrome>
     <transparent>false</transparent>
     <visible>false</visible>
	 
   </initialWindow>
</application>

The Adobe AIR SDK includes a couple binary tools that provide for testing during development, as well as packaging the application for distribution. Executing the binary file for packaging from the command line results in a distributable Adobe AIR file (application). Although Adobe AIR is only in beta at the time of this writing, Adobe Dreamweaver and Aptana Studio already have extensions that enable you to easily package, test, and distribute Adobe AIR applications. There's even a TextMate macro. 

./adt -certificate -cn Hello 2048-RSA ../[path to project]/hello.pfx password
./adt -package -storetype pkcs12 -keystore ../[path to project]/hello.pfx -storepass password ../[path to project]/hello.air ../[path to project]/application.xml -C ../[path to project] hello.htm

The primary means for distributing an Adobe AIR application is through a web page-based launch badge (sometimes called an install badge). Again, the assets for the launch badge are included with the SDK and consist primarily of a small piece of Flash content. Don't judge this little gem's functionality by its size. The launch badge is capable of determining whether Adobe AIR is installed on the client, downloading and installing it if necessary, downloading and installing the target application, and then running that application, all in a matter of four or less clicks (see Figure 1).

Figure 1. The web page-based launch badge determines if Adobe AIR is installed, and provides the user with installation instructions as needed

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