Archive for the ‘Other Development’ Category

Introduction to AIR

Friday, May 2nd, 2008


Air is the Earth’s atmosphere which is a layer of gases surrounding the planet Earth and retained by the Earth’s gravity.
Adobe Integrated Runtime. It is a system that lets you use HTML/Ajax, Flex or Flash to create rich desktop applications. I don’t know much about Flex or Ajax, but I’m going to show you how you can use Flash to build a proper desktop application as easy as you would create a game. First you’ll need to go here and click on ‘Download the Adobe AIR update for Flash CS3 Professional’. *Note: this is only for users with Flash CS3 Pro.

You’ll need to quit Flash to install the update, so open it again. Create a normal Flash file, then go to File>Publish Settings>Version>Adobe AIR 1.0. Now when we export, a swf won’t be created, instead Flash will take you to a real desktop application. To make a permanent application, go to Commands>AIR - Application and Installer Settings, fill out the required information then press ‘Publish Air File’. You’ll notice you have to save the FLA before this, and the necessary AIR files will be created in the same directory as the FLA. Open the ‘*.air’ file, this will install the application to a destination of your choice.

I’ll soon post extra info on using AS3 commands especially for AIR, and other features you can use to create a good application. For now, keep experimenting and see what you can come up with.