Preparing to Build Your First AIR Application

Feb 4, 2009

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This chapter is from the book 

Sams Teach Yourself Adobe(r) AIR Programming in 24 Hours

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Workshop

The workshop contains a Q&A section, quiz questions, and an exercise to help reinforce what you’ve learned in this hour. If you get stuck, the answers to the quiz can be found after the questions.

Q&A

Q.	*Why would you select one IDE over the other?*
A.	Depending on your experience level, one IDE might just fit your developer hand better. Flex Builder 3 is a likely IDE for Flex developers who want to build AIR applications; Flash CS3 Pro is the best choice for Flash developers who want to build AIR applications; Dreamweaver CS3 and Aptana Studio are two choices for HTML/JavaScript or AJAX-style AIR development.
Q.	*Which IDE is ready to go out of the box (without needing any updates or extensions)?*
A.	Flex Builder 3 was designed from the ground up to be the de facto standard for building Flex-based AIR applications. Flash CS3 Pro requires an update and Dreamweaver CS3 requires an extension to be able to leverage AIR development features.
Q.	*Can I use the Flex Builder 3 Eclipse plug-in version to build AIR applications, or do you need the Flex Builder 3 standalone version?*
A.	You can build AIR applications with either version of the Flex Builder 3 software. There are no differences in the AIR development features (or any other Flex features for that matter) in either version.
Q.	*Can I name the application descriptor file differently?*
A.	The AIR application descriptor created automatically by all three of the Adobe IDEs is named after the main application name (without any file extension) plus `-app.xml` (for example, for a main application named `hello_world.html`, the AIR application descriptor is named `hello_world-app.xml`).

Quiz

What does an AIR application descriptor file contain?
The Adobe AIR extension for Dreamweaver CS3 is used for what type of AIR applications?
How do you create the AIR application descriptor file?
What version of AIR are the three Adobe IDEs targeted for?

Answers

The AIR application descriptor contains metadata that describes the AIR application and includes such things as the application name, the description, copyright, application version, AIR runtime version, system chrome, window size and initial position, and in some cases application icon information. Listing 4.3 shows the application descriptor created by completing the Dreamweaver CS3 AIR Application Settings GUI.

Listing 4.3. The `hello_world-app.xml` Created by Dreamweaver CS3

1: <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
2: <application xmlns="http://ns.adobe.com/air/application/1.5">
3:   <filename>testSite</filename>
4:   <copyright>2008</copyright>
5:   <description>Hello World from DW CS3</description>
6:   <customUpdateUI>false</customUpdateUI>
7:   <name>Hello World</name>
8:   <id>testSite</id>
9:   <version>3</version>
10:   <initialWindow>
11:     <content>hello_world.html</content>
12:     <height>600</height>
13:     <width>800</width>
14:     <systemChrome>standard</systemChrome>
15:     <transparent>false</transparent>
16:     <visible>true</visible>
17:   </initialWindow>
18:   <icon>
19:     <image128x128>01fig10.png</image128x128>
20:   </icon>
21: </application>

The Adobe AIR extension for Dreamweaver CS3 is used to build HTML, HTML/JavaScript, or AJAX-based AIR applications.
You do need to create the AIR application descriptor file. All three of the Adobe IDEs automatically generate this file. You can certainly modify it with any text editor, but creating it from scratch is not necessary.
All three Adobe IDEs are targeted, as of this writing, at the AIR 1.5 runtime.

By the Way

The AIR runtime, as of this writing, is at version 1.5.

Exercises

Take a look at Aptana Studio. You should explore what it offers because you might find that it is a better fit for you over what Dreamweaver CS3 offers. You can download it at www.aptana.com/studio.

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