Quite some time ago I came across this article at Adobe’s Web site that describes how to create multilingual HTML-based AIR applications. I haven’t personally had the need to create a multilingual AIR application, but I found the concept worth being aware of should the need later arise (it’s always easy to be obvious as to what’s possible).
Archives For Adobe AIR
This video at Adobe’s Web site previews two of the file system additions forthcoming in Adobe AIR 2.0. It’s only six minutes long but shows some cool new features for launching files and for accessing mounted drives. The specific code being used is Flex, but the same functionality will be capable using Ajax, too.
Adobe announced last week details for the forthcoming 2.0 version of their Adobe AIR (of which I’m a big fan). It’ll be released in beta format by the end of 2009, with the official release in the first half of 2010 (theoretically). The updated AIR 2.0 will be able to make use of mounted mass storage devices, like flash drives and cameras, will be able to communicate with native applications running on the computer, should have improved performance, and more.
For more on Adobe AIR, you can check the official Adobe AIR Web site, read this review (of AIR 1.5), or see my book on developing AIR applications using HTML and JavaScript.
I’m a big fan of Adobe’s AIR, and not just because I’ve written a book on it! I’ve been developing AIR applications, for in-house and client use, for a couple of years now, in both JavaScript/HTML and Flex. I’ve recently, and not so recently, come across these two good articles on Adobe AIR:
From the titles, the articles are self-explanatory, but the emphasis is on performance. The interesting thing about the first article is that it discusses the theory of performance, which people don’t think about enough (e.g., what does it mean to perform well?). The article uses a specific example for which one could easily come up with three different senses of “performance” (the article uses Flex for the code).
The second article has lots of specific, excellent tips, many of which being applicable to any application you develop (although the example also uses Flex for the code, it’s mostly ActionScript).
Even if you’re not using Adobe AIR, I would think these articles would be worth reading, as the subject of application performance is one we could all always continue to learn more about.
An article I wrote for Peachpit Press titled Using an Encrypted Local Database in Adobe AIR was just published at Peachpit’s Web site. In this article I discuss and demonstrate a feature added to Adobe AIR in version 1.5. This addition allows you to securely store data in a database on the client’s computer (previous versions of AIR supported both databases and encrypted local storage, but not encrypted local databases).
