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Adobe AIR is a cross-platform runtime environment for building rich Internet applications using Adobe Flash, Adobe Flex, HTML, or Ajax, that can be deployed as a desktop application.
Adobe made a public preview release of AIR (then called Apollo) along with a software development kit (SDK) and extension for developing Apollo applications with the Flex framework, on March 19, 2007. On June 10, 2007, Apollo was renamed to AIR and a public beta release of the runtime was launched. Public beta 2 of AIR SDK was released on October 1, 2007. Public beta 3, was released on December 12, 2007, and version 1.0 was released on February 25, 2008.[1][2]
A Linux alpha version was released on March 31, 2008.[3]
Overview
AIR is intended to be a versatile runtime environment, as it allows existing Flash, Actionscript or HTML and JavaScript code to be used to construct a more traditional desktop-like program. Adobe positions it as a browser-less runtime for rich Internet applications that can be deployed onto the desktop, rather than a fully-fledged application framework. The differences between each deployment paradigm provides both advantages and disadvantages. For example, a rich internet application deployed in a browser does not require installation, while one deployed with AIR requires the application be packaged, digitally signed, and installed to the user's local file system. However, this provides access to local storage and file systems, while browser-deployed applications are more limited in where and how data are accessed and stored.[4] In most cases, rich internet applications store users' data on their own servers, but the ability to consume and work with data on a user's local file system allows for greater flexibility.
Adobe AIR 1.1 was released on June 16, 2008, and provides support for building internationalized languages. Runtime installation dialogs were localized to Brazilian Portuguese, Chinese (Traditional and Simplified), French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Russian and Spanish. In addition, version 1.1 includes support for Microsoft Windows XP Tablet PC Edition and 64-bit editions of Windows Vista Home Premium, Business, Ultimate, or Enterprise.[5]
Applications
AIR applications can operate offline, and then activate further functionality or upload data when an active Internet connection becomes available. One example is eBay Desktop, which allows sellers to complete a listing offline and then upload it to eBay when they are connected to the Internet.[6] Other companies currently using AIR include AOL, NASDAQ, CleVR, Pownce and finetune.[7] Over 180 applications are currently available on the Adobe AIR marketplace.[8]
Development environment
Adobe currently provides three ways of developing AIR applications:
Dreamweaver CS4 requires an additional extension to compile AIR applications,[10] as does Flash CS4 in the form of an update.[11] The cross-platform nature of the runtime means any HTML editor, coupled with the AIR SDK, can create AIR applications. AIR itself uses the WebKit HTML rendering engine, along with Flash and PDF technologies.[6]
JavaScript Toolkits
To run in the AIR environment JavaScript toolkits need changes - because of the security modelclarify. A number of toolkits have been modified in this way, most notably dojo.
Data Options
AIR currently has four ways of working with data:
- database server via web services
- local XML file
- local SQLite database shipped with AIR
- encrypted local store included with AIR
Security
Documents that describe the security features of AIR:
Flight Simulator X
Adobe Air is reported to take possession of the .air extension when installed. If you are a user of Microsoft Flight Simulator 2004 or Flight Simulator X, the installation of Adobe Air will cause aircraft files to be misinterpreted as Adobe Air files. There are several possible solutions to this problem. Adobe recommends reassociating the .air application with FSX (http://www.adobe.com/cfusion/webforums/forum/messageview.cfm?forumid=72&catid=670&threadid=1389507&enterthread=y). This would break the Adobe Air framework (since .air files would no longer be associated with Adobe Air).
See also
References
External links
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