Getting Creative with Adobe AIR
Peter Elst - The ActionScript Conference 2009

Who is Peter?
✤ Freelance Flash Platform Consultant
✤ Adobe Community Expert for RIA
✤ Adobe Certified Instructor
✤ Author to a number of ActionScript books including
“Object-Oriented ActionScript 3.0”

This was last year...

RIA meets Desktop
✤ Introduction to Adobe AIR
✤ How to build AIR applications
✤ Network, Windowing, HTML, FileSystem, SQLite,
Drag ‘n Drop, Clipboard access, Update API’s,...
What else could I possibly talk about?

Thinking outside the box

Creative uses of the technology

AIR is more than Twitter clients

New York TimesReader

TWiT Live Desktop

web + desktop = ?

a new paradigm to be explored

What makes Adobe AIR so special
✤ Allows you to use your existing web development skills
✤ Free tools, no costs involved to develop apps
✤ Cross platform (Windows, Mac OS X, Linux) and support
for mobile and devices is on the roadmap
✤ Bridges web and desktop environments in a secure way
Its fun to play around with!

HelloWorld in AIR

Detecting if AIR is installed

Launching apps from the browser

Record streaming audio

Screensaver

Screensaver (Windows only)
✤ Inspired by Keith Peters
✤ Make a full screen AIR application
✤ Export the AIR application and install
✤ Rename the .exe to .scr and distribute
Note: bypassing the AIR installer is not recommended
practice (but works most of the time) ;)

SQLite wrapper

SQLite wrapper (top secret)
✤ To be announced at Flash on the Beach later this month
✤ Make it (very) easy to work with local databases
✤ Features so far included setting up and querying databases
✤ New release will have support for basic online/offline
synchronization

Conclusion
✤ Don’t let technology limit your imagination
✤ Don’t see desktop and web as separate environments
✤ Do experiment with features and hack around
✤ Do things you love and share them with the community

Q&A
✤ Have you played with Adobe AIR?
✤ What do you like about it?
✤ How do you see the web and desktop converging?

Thank you!
Feel free to get in touch with questions,
feedback or ideas for projects!
blog: www.peterelst.com
email: info@peterelst.com
twitter: @peterelst