n8o » Air

Creating an app for the Playbook.

n8o — Thu, 24 Feb 2011 15:49:05 +0000

Back a few months ago at max. BlackBerry announced they would be giving away free PlayBooks to developers who develop an application for their platform. I for one am all about free stuff. So I set out to develop a tool that I thought would be useful and I would use regularly. The app I decided to create was a programming calculator.

Today the application is finally complete and has been accepted into the app store.

While creating this app I used the latest version of Flash Builder Burrito. I found it a lot easier to use vs Flash Builder 4. The new built-in mobile wizards and device simulators were very helpful. Also the flex framework really worked great with layout and positioning as it always does. The only real gotcha with flex was how skinning works on mobile devices vs desktop apps. Everything else was a breeze.

Thanks Adobe and Blackberry for making such great tools that work!

Adobe AIR 2.0 Web Server

n8o — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 15:00:55 +0000

I found this cool example of an HTTP based socket server over at Christophe Coenraet’s blog. Basically he setup a socket and made it listen for incoming HTTP connections and server data based up the requests. Very neat stuff. It’s always interesting to see people push the uses of AS3 in new directions.

This should also be possible under older versions of AIR too. since those versions supported sockets too. the only difference is in AIR 2.0 we now have UDP sockets.

You can view the code and examples here.

Flash Player 10.1 & AIR 2.0 Betas + Samples

n8o — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 15:42:51 +0000

I have to say i was rather surprised when I woke up this morning to find out new betas of the Flash Player and AIR were released. I don’t believe I’ve been this excited for a new release of flash in a long time. But what I’m more excited about are all the new features in AIR. It seems like Adobe really listened to the community and put in the features we have been asking for. The feature I’m most exited about is the support for native code integration. Finally i wont have to rely on Merapi any more (even though it is a great project that helped me with what I needed at the time). So if you want to hurry an try out all the latest and greatest go ahead download the files below to get you started and take a look at the samples below to see what is possible.

< Air 2.0 Beta runtime / Air 2.0 Beta SDK >
< Flash Player 10.1 Beta / Player Global SWC >
< Developer Guides >
< AS3 Language Reference >

Samples:

Samples are from Adobe

FileTile

FileTile demonstrates two new capabilities in AIR 2: mass storage device detection, and opening files with their default applications. When running, FileTile detects when a storage device (such as a USB drive or a Flip video camera) is connected, and displays the contents of the files on that device. Right-click on images to preview them, or double-click to open files with their default application.

Download Installer | Source

SearchCentral

SearchCentral lets you search your desktop, Google, or Wikipedia from within a single application. SearchCentral takes advantage of the new native process API to communicate with the Mac OS X Spotlight feature. It also uses the open document API to open files when double-clicked. (Mac only)

Download Installer | Source

Microphone

Microphone records and plays back audio locally. It demonstrates a new feature in AIR 2 that lets you write audio locally without requiring a server. You can also speed-up or slow-down the playback speed of the recorded audio.

Download Installer | Source

S3e

S3E is an application that provides a graphical front-end to a user’s Amazon S3 account. S3E demonstrates the new drag-and-drop support of remote files using file promises. Note: Requires an Amazon S3 account.

Download Installer | Source

MenuMail

MenuMail displays notifications when new emails arrive in your IMAP account. It demonstrates the new encrypted socket support in AIR 2.

Download Installer | Source

KeePIPE

KeePIPE is a JavaScript based application that lets users share files on the same network. The application demonstrates how the new networking capabilities can be used to create peer-to-peer applications. KeePIPE also demonstrates the new open document capabilities. If you use an application such as VMWare, you can use this application to transfer files between your VM and host computer.

Download Installer | Source | Read me

GeoTest

GeoTest lets you throw images around the screen using a built-in physics engine. This application demonstrates the new multi-touch capabilities in AIR 2. Note: GeoTest requires a multi-touch device such as an HP TouchSmart PC or a Dell Latitude XT2 running Windows 7.

Download Installer | Source

TouchTest

TouchTest allows you to drag, scale, and rotate images on the screen. This application demonstrates the new multi-touch capabilities in AIR 2. Note: TouchTest requires a multi-touch device such as an HP TouchSmart PC or a Dell Latitude XT2 running Windows 7.

Download Installer | Source

PhotoPhysics

PhotoPhysics is a multi-touch application that includes a built-in physics engine. Note: PhotoPhysics requires a multi-touch device such as an HP TouchSmart PC or a Dell Latitude XT2 running Windows 7.

Download Installer | Source

SpriteF:-Oract

SpriteFract demonstrates a mouse-compatible, direct-manipulation interface. It has a built-in physics engine and leverages the new multi-touch APIs. It also uses PixelBender to asynchronously process a large amount of geometry data. Note: SprteFract requires a multi-touch device such as an HP TouchSmart PC or a Dell Latitude XT2 running Windows 7.

Download Installer | Source

Doh! Google voice acquires Gizmo5

n8o — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 21:29:44 +0000

In my never-ending attempt to rid myself of a relentless cell phone service that I hardly ever use. I decided to work on another AIR Application a few months back. The concept was to make an application that would easily bridge Google Voice and the free Gizmo5 service to allow you to make and take phone calls from your PC.

I did a bit of research into the web API’s for both companies and was going to give it a shot and see what I could create in an attempt to figure out how I could rid of my blaster iPhone for once and for all. But now that Google has acquired Gizmo5 that may all have changed and I hope for the better. I guess we will see. But even despite of this I’m still working on this application when I have time so stay tuned for more.

Adobe Social

n8o — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 21:17:12 +0000

So I’ve been looking into the new Adobe Social API for a little application I’ve been planning on working on. One of the things I hate is trying to update my avatar / icon on all of these different social media sites. So I’m planning on making a simple Adobe Air application that I can add an image to, resize and then upload to all the social media sites I use. The only problem is from what I understand is that the Social API will only work from a valid domain that you setup and will not work from localhost. So as a result this new API is incompatible with AIR. Oh well. Shouldn’t be to hard to figure out all of the different API’s for uploading to a bunch of different site. Right?

Adobe Air XBMC Media Manager

n8o — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 18:15:57 +0000

One of my biggest covets with xbmc is trying to fix movie and thumbnail information. It’s just a too complex of an operation for a remote and just plain annoying. Being that i don’t have a PC and only use a mac I’ve found it difficult to update the XMBC / Plex database. OSX just doesn’t have as many cool tools and developers as windows does. so I’ve been trying to figure out a good way to edit the database with a separate application. I’ve looked at using Media Companion but then i would have to figure out how to run the application under mono (which so far hasn’t worked).

So as an alternative i started looking into how XMBC and PLEX both organize and manage their thumbnails and have decided to try and make a simple application in Adobe Air to do this. Right now I’m still in the planning stages. So i’ll post more details back here as i make progress.