Archive for 'Adobe AIR'
Eliminating the Need for Common Desktop Apps
Posted on March 6, 2008, under Adobe AIR, Browsers, Development, Software, Tools and Services, Windows.
As a desktop software developer, it is hard to admit that I have enjoyed moving my common applications to web services. Like many these days, I am not tied to just one computer. A desktop, laptop, and computer at work are just some. I eliminated the need for Outlook, as I use Google Apps for all of my mail, calendar, and most documents. The convenience of having access to your data from anywhere is huge. However, when I am at the desktop I want to use some of my web services like a desktop app.
For example Meebo. I have been using Meebo for my IM needs for some time, I love it. However having a full screen browser open all the time kind of sucks. There is a project called mebone written in Adobe Air, however it looks like it has since been abandoned. I ran into a version restriction of Air, an annoyance I have highlighted before about Air. I am not going to go and install a beta version of Air just to run a specific Air application.
I ran across a link to Prism, a project from the Mozilla folks. At it’s current state, Prism is little more than an isolated Firefox browser. You can install any URL as a "Web App" and run it stand alone. The road map looks really good for the project, and I can’t wait to see what comes. There is a lot of potential there. I like Prism for several reasons. The main reason is it allows me to run my mail, calendar, docs in a stand alone quick to launch browser that acts like a desktop application. This works great for Meebo, and my mail.
There are some applications that I personally would never see feasible to use as an online service. Photoshop, podcatchers, backup software, are some on my list. But the connection from the desktop to web services via applications like Prism are priceless.
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Adobe’s AIR: The Good Comes With Bad
Posted on February 25, 2008, under Adobe AIR, Development, Software, Tools and Services.
One my favorite morning reads, ReadWriteWeb has a great article about Adobe’s AIR technology. For those not familiar, AIR stands for Adobe Integrated Runtime, and is a cross platform, code once run everywhere, light weight platform for applications. It holds a lot of advantages over other similar platforms. It’s two strong points in my eyes are: 1) it’s sexy looking, which is always a plus for end users. 2) It is easy to program in, especially for those who have worked with other Adobe products and technologies.
However my first experience with AIR was similar to some of my frustrations with .NET desktop applications. I was on the beta program for Pownce, which is written completely in AIR on the desktop side. I went and downloaded AIR, and naturally got the latest version from Adobe. Went to install the Pownce application and it said I needed an older version of AIR, immediately I was derailed. This happens more often than not with these "platforms", developers compile to a certain version of the platform and managing more than one version is a nightmare. Additionally, the last thing you want for a potential customer or user of your product is one more step before they can use your application; especially if that step is going to download another version of .NET or AIR. It’s the main reason I do not code in .NET for BlueCrestStudios.
I understand that with AIR it is just getting it’s official start out of Adobe labs, so it may not hold much weight here, we will see in the future. I hope that Adobe learns from others mistakes and makes the platform backwards compatible, easily distributable within AIR applications, and able to have more than one version installed if developers are going to be compiling against a certain version.
All in all, I think it has great potential, and will definitely be working it into future projects.
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