AIR & Printing is a talk made during SOTR 2010 in London. During this event I talked on how to work offline with AIR to create PDF in runtime directly with Actionscript 3 without using any other technology

1. AIR & Printing
AIR 2, AlivePDF and PurePDF:
everything you need in your RIA or desktop apps

2. Luca Mezzalira
ACE and ACI on Flash, Flex with AIR and Flash Lite
Mart3 owner and Flash Platform Developer
Adobe Italy Consultant
Teacher, Writer, Adobe supporter!

3. Luca Mezzalira
ACE and ACI on Flash, Flex with AIR and Flash Lite
Mart3 owner and Flash Platform Developer
Adobe Italy Consultant
Teacher, Writer, Adobe supporter!
Oh, yes! I forget! I’m Chewbacca also!

4. Save time
when someone ask me
to print a report in my
RIA or Desktop App

5. Agenda
. Printing with Flash and Flex
. AIR 2 new features
. AIR 2 and PrintJob
. AlivePDF
. PurePDF
. Questions & Answear

6. When do you use PRINTING API?
. to print a report
. to print a form (invoice, receipt, ...)
. to print an artwork
. to prepare a PDF for typography (REMEMBER that
WE HAVE TLF)

7. Printing in Flash
. PrintJob class
. OS Dialog box to interact with printer
. problem to create complex documents
. problem to manage more than 1 page
. problem to print big images
. not easy to work with dynamic data

8. Printing with Flex
. FlexPrintJob to print Flex objects
. PrintAdvancedDataGrid
. PrintDataGrid
. PrintOLAPDataGrid

9. FlexPrintJob
var printJob:FlexPrintJob = new FlexPrintJob();
printJob.start();
printJob.addObject(myObject, FlexPrintJobScaleType.MATCH_WIDTH);
printJob.send();
When you call start() method Flash Player or AIR:
1. give a feedback from user’s choice (true/false)
2. retrieve page dimension from Printer
Each object added with addObject method will be
print in a different page

10. PrintDataGrid
//thePrintView is a custom component with PrintDataGrid component
printJob.addObject(thePrintView);
while (thePrintView.myDataGrid.validNextPage) {
thePrintView.myDataGrid.nextPage();
printJob.addObject(thePrintView);
}
With PrintDataGrid component you can manage
rows to print in many pages

11. this is the
past...
...now the
PRESENT

12. AIR 2 new features
Multitouch API ( do you know Steve!? )
Microphone data access
Open documents with user’s default application
UDP Socket
Socket Server (this feature ROCKS!)
Screen reader support
File promises
Mass storage device detection
Printing API ( :D )
... and so on ...

13. AIR Printing API
. pixelsPerInch -> resolution to use for Bitmap
. printer -> set Printer
. printers -> Vector.<String> with all printers installed
. copies -> number of copies to print
. selectePaperSize() -> choose your page size
. start2() -> start a print with new API
. terminate() -> reset PrintJob object if you need it

14. AIR Printing API
PrintMethod:
. AUTO -> Automatic selection of best method of printing
. VECTOR -> ehm... maybe print with Vector method?
. BITMAP -> mumble, mumble... DOH!
PrintIUIOptions -> need to manage Print Dialog Box
Everything you need it’s Language Reference!!!

15. AlivePDF
AS3 PDF library AlivePDF works with:
Images, EPS files,
you can use online Vectors, Embedded
and offline Fonts...
you don’t need You can add in your
any serverside PDF: links,
script transitions,
PDF settings,
...
THANK YOU MATE!

16. AlivePDF
Steps to work with AlivePDF API:
1. create a PDF object
2. addPage()
3. add content (images, text, eps...)
3a. (Optional) setting your PDF...
4. save it with FileReference or FileStream

17. AlivePDF - case history
My client ask me to create a comic creator that
runs on Mac and PC without installation
What do I need ???
Flash + Zinc + AlivePDF

18. PurePDF
It’s a very powerful PDF library made by Sephiroth
http://www.sephiroth.it/weblog/archives/2010/02/
purepdf_a_complete_actionscript_pdf_l.php
PurePDF has tons of cool features:
. barcode generator
. multi column
. embedded movies
. metadata, page headers, page footers
. vertical text
. javascript
... and so on

19. PurePDF
This library is targeted for Flash Player 10
For any help, doubt or more use PurePDF list:
http://code.google.com/p/purepdf/issues/list
Sepy and his team is working on this open-source as3 libs so in
the next future will see new amazing functionalities!!!

20. Resources
ALIVEpdf
http://code.google.com/p/alivepdf/
PUREpdf
http://code.google.com/p/purepdf/
FlexReport
http://flexreport.riaforge.org/

21. Finally...

22. my “thoughts” about Flash Platform attack:

23. my “thoughts” about Flash Platform attack:
HTML 5, Apple and so on!

24. my “thoughts” about Flash Platform attack:
HTML 5, Apple and so on!
NO
OOP, Design Patterns, workflow, TLF, real multiple
screen deployment...

26. to lose your time with this cool shit!
blog:lucamezzalira.com email:luca@mart3.org
twitter:lucamezzalira site:www.mart3.org