AIR examples/links, Desktop 2.0 and Adobe Developer Connection
Monday 29 October 2007 @ 11:21 am

Christophe Coenraets released the code Code from his MAX session in Barcelona about Offline Synchronization using AIR and Live Cycle Data Services.

Rich Tretola (Everythingflex) posted an update of his AIR Update Manager. With the Update Manager you can define the version and update URL of your AIR application and also all dialogs regarding the update can be set. Another nice example by him is the AIR Context Menu.

Eric Feminella blogged an AIR extension for Cairngorm. I have not tested it yet but it looks interesting. I have already developed AIR apps with Cairngorm and there is no big difference to Flex web applications.
The badge install for AIR is one of the coolest things looking at the using experience when installing an AIR Application and the runtime itself. Oliver Goldman from the AIR Team posted about an update which closes a security hole.

Christian Cantrell from the AIR Team wrote a nice article about AIR as Desktop 2.0.

When you are new to AIR be sure to check the AIR Showcase and when you start learning AIR be sure to check the Adobe AIR Developer Center which is part of the new launched Adobe Developer Connection. For more on this check the latest Adobe newsletter which provides many interesting links for learning resources and read the ADC introduction by Jonathan Wall.

Comments (1) - Posted in AIR, Cairngorm, Flex by Sönke  



MAX Barcelona - Short Notes
Wednesday 17 October 2007 @ 9:33 am

The MAX in Barcelona is great and today is already the last day.

Grant Skinner’s Session “50 reasons why ActionScript 3 kicks ass” was really cool so be sure to check his talk online.

“Customizing the Flex Framework” was presented by Ely Greenfield who made the talk for Deepa who could not come to Barcelona. Check Deepa’s blog were the slides and code is posted.

Another great talk was “Local Database Access with AIR and Data Synchroization Strategies” by Christophe Coenraets. He showed the different approaches how to synchronize data like SQL statements in the MXML, using the Data Access Object Pattern and the Object-Relational mapping (ORM) approach using annotations (custom metadata) and the Reflexion API (describeType). Christophe has posted some code regarding the ORM approach on this blog. Now this is opens real new possibilities. Now let’s wait when Hibernate or ActiveRecord is adapted for Flex ;) Now the talk of Peter Elst starts (AS3 Best Practice) so more to come soon.

Comments (3) - Posted in AIR, Flash, Flex by Sönke  



Cairngorm 2.1.1 released
Monday 8 October 2007 @ 7:02 pm

Cairngorm 2.1.1 had a long beta phase and is now released on Adobe Labs.

It is now slit up into “normal” Cairngorm and Cairngorm Enterprise for LCDS solutions.

Cairngorm is a microarchitecure/framework for Adobe Flex. I use it in every of my projects and can only recomment it to every Flex Developer. After a small learning curve where you have to understand the architecture of Cairngorm applications you will benifit from a very clearly seperated application logic.

A good starting point learning cairngorm are Adobe Labs and CairngormDocs (Cairngorm Diagram has a nice visualization of how Cairngorm works).
[via Alistair McLeod]

Comments (0) - Posted in Cairngorm, Flex by Sönke  



MAX Chicago - Short Review
Saturday 6 October 2007 @ 5:27 pm

The MAX in Chicago is just over and many awesome new things came up.

There are new betas for Flex 3 and AIR and the prerelease of the new Adobe Media Player.

Other new betas, tools and plugins are on Adobe Labs so check it out.

If you want to view the sneak peeks check Aral Balkan’s blog for Flash Player 10 and Thermo and Peter Elst’s blog for the rest ;).

Just to name a view new things Flash Player 10 (Astro) with new text rendering engine, 3D support and AIF rocks. Thermo is a dream for Flex designer developer workflow.

The sneak peek of “Flash “Next” showed cool new timeline features and inverse kinematics!
Flash on C/C++ offers new ways and the Quake demo was really great. With Flash Home it is possible to build rich and intelligente mobile user interfaces and Photoshop Express impressed with wonderfull image effects.

Not featured in the videos but very powerfull too are the Flex Skin Design Extensions. There are plugins for Fireworks, Photoshop, Illustrator and Flash to build really custom designed components! So in the future you have to look twice to recognize a Flex app ;)
I will be at MAX in Barcelona and I am sure I will explore more cool stuff.

Comments (0) - Posted in AIR, Flash, Flex, General by Sönke  



Joost beta started
Saturday 6 October 2007 @ 4:44 pm

Joost is an online video software based on p2p and made by they guys who brought up Kazaa and Skype.

“It’s video – more than 15,000 shows, with more added daily. It’s online – all you need is a broadband internet connection. And it’s free.”

I tried it out and they UI looks pretty slick. It runs in fullscreen mode, supports widgets and is a nice experience. The stream sometimes hangs and the video quality is not that perfect but anyway, it is pretty cool.
It crashed after using it for a while but for a beta this is ok. Also installing on Mac was not that easy as sometimes strange errors poped up. Anyway, it worked out somehow.

Comments (0) - Posted in General by Sönke  



Adobe Labs - All New: Adobe AIR, Flex 3 and Media Player Prerelease
Monday 1 October 2007 @ 9:11 am

Today starts the MAX in Chicago. A good day for releasing new software on Adobe Labs.

The betas for AIR and Flex 3 go into round 2 (beta 2). Be sure to check Ted Patrick’s Blog for an introduction on the new Flex 3 features:

Also check out the new Adobe Media Player Prerelease. The Media Player is based on AIR and comes with a smooth UI.

Also new on labs:

Comments (0) - Posted in AIR, Flex by Sönke