Posts Tagged apollo

When I was visiting the Adobe Live event in Amsterdam (May 2007) the session of Mike Downey about Apollo caught my attention. Adobe Integrated Runtime, code name Apollo, (see also AIR) is the runtime environment that brings rich internet applications to the desktop. This ‘desktop’ can exist on any platform where a runtime is available. At the moment of writing this blog entry, only Windows and Mac are supported but work is in progress to support linux as well as mobile phone platforms.

The idea is to use existing web technologies (HTML, Flash, Flex, Ajax) to create a RIA that runs in the AIR runtime and is able to use the AIR API, e.g. for caching purposes. This API is available through JavaScript or ActionScript. It is possible to manipulate entire HTML pages using DOM and subclassing the HTMLControl class. By doing so JavaScript actions can be manipulated or a submit can be intercepted. The AIR API offers functionality to detect if the application is online, to manipulate the window chrome (with transparency), clipboard, drag&drop, network functionality and local storage. JavaScript can call ActionScript and vice versa.
The deployable unit is a .AIR file that needs to be installed the first time. The API contains update functionality to get a latest version of an application.

When looking for cool AIR applications on the web it becomes clear that it is a challenge for developers to use cool graphics that make your rich internet application intuitive and really look good. From this perspective it does not matter if you use Flex 3 or e.g. Ajax. Flex 3 has some cool new animations (mx.effects package) but as a developer you better find a good interaction designer to cover that part. With AIR you can combine different RIA technologies and extend them with powerful desktop functionality. It is also interesting to see how fast we are able to build new applications based on the scripting environment(s) that AIR supports. More interesting AIR developer details with examples I will post in next entries in this blog.

Some applications start to show the real value of AIR; at this moment Adobe launched a contest to create the most unique Adobe AIR application. With actually some real cool prices; may we have your votes!