zip
MediaCenter-stage1Compete.zip
MediaCenter-stage2Compete.zip
With the development of Adobe Integrated Runtime (AIR), the possibilities for what
you can create with Flex open wider than ever before. In a nutshell, AIR allows you to
create your applications in such a way that they live on the user??™s computer, like
Apple Mail or Microsoft Word, as opposed to residing on a web server. That way, the
application has the ability to keep working when the user??™s computer is not connected
to the network, a greater ability to remember settings, and easier access to
the user??™s local files (users can even drag a file from their desktop directly into the
application). When Internet access is available, the application can pull information
in the background and store it for later. These are hybrid applications, mixing the
idea of a desktop application with a web application, and they allow you to build
237
FLEX AND AIR
Chapter 12
using the same tools that you are used to, such as Flash, Ajax, Flex, HTML, or PDFs, and then deploy
cross-platform. You do not have to worry about what kind of computer your application will be
installed on??”AIR works on both PCs and Macs, and a version is planned for Linux. You can build applications
much faster than you could using traditional desktop applications while maintaining a small
application footprint. The possibilities are very exciting.
To explore how AIR applications work, we will create a media center that will play a variety of media
(images, sound, and video) directly from your desktop (Figure 12-1).
Pages:
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167