Flex Builder 3.0
http://www.adobe.com/products/flex/

Flex SDK 3.0
http://opensource.adobe.com/wiki/display/flexsdk/Flex+SDK
AIR 1.0
http://www.adobe.com/products/air/

I develop Flex and AIR applications in Flex Builder on my Macbook Pro notebook and I keep a copy of VMWare Fusion and Window XP on standby for testing.

Last week while debugging an AIR application I came across a NativeMenu problem that required me to set breakpoints inside the Windows specific section of the NativeMenu code. No problem, I fired up VMWare Fusion, started Windows XP, installed Flex Builder 3 beta 3 and imported the project from my Mac partition. It all worked very slick and I was able to debug the problem and code a solution from within Windows, all without making a copy of the code base.

It all sounds so good and efficient right?

But later as I was basking in the glory of my victory, I got to thinking…this won’t be possible once Flex Builder 3 is released because I won’t have a Windows license key for Flex Builder 3. Will I need to spend hundreds of dollars for a Windows license key just so I can debug the occasional AIR application? What about when Linux support is a reality? Hundreds more?

The short answer may be “Yes”, pony up the cash and move on ya whiner!

But there’s a larger question at the root of this issue. Does Adobe as the provider of a freely available cross-platform runtime have an obligation to it’s developers to provide an equivalent platform for developing and debugging across all the supported platforms? In my opinion they do, it’s in Adobe’s best interest long term. Being able to debug AIR applications on Windows, Mac and (looking forward) Linux will only improve the quality of AIR applications and that in-turn should promote adoption of the platorm.

Let me be clear, I’m not suggesting that Adobe give away the IDE farm, I am suggesting that Adobe needs to consider the developer faced with challenges of cross-platform debugging in AIR. How does the developer who cannot afford a Windows, Mac & Linux IDE affect the platform as a whole? In my opinion the AIR applications we create (free or not) are public ambassadors for the platform, as such we need them to be stable and performant across every platform the AIR runtime supports. To accomplish this we need reasonable access to tools for each platorm.

So here’s my suggestion Adobe, it’s simple. Make the Flex Builder Professional license cross-platform. Let your developers make a choice for cross-platform debugging.

We knew it was coming but we didn’t know when or in what form. Adam Flater just posted that the Artemis project has officially been reborn as the Merapi project. The list of contributors looks impressive, including both developers and designers.

For those of you not familiar with Artemis Merapi, it’s a framework for connecting Adobe AIR applications to the desktop using Java technology. Merapi picks-up where the AIR 1.0 runtime drops off, in that while AIR can read and write from the native file system it cannot launch native applications or interact with the shell.

Merapi has huge potential and I’m looking forward discovering what’s possible when we can combine the power of Java with the richness and ubiquity of Adobe AIR. These are exciting times indeed!

By the way…looks like the namesake might be a mountain in Java Indonesia

Edit:
Andrew Powell has also posted a few words about Merapi and a few more about why they chose the name. (02/05/08 09:37am PST)

• AIR SDK (Freely available from Adobe Labs )
• Image editing software
• Flash Authoring (only if you want to modify the default badge)
• Your favorite text editor or IDE

Put simply, the AIR install badge is a SWF that detects the presence of the AIR runtime, if the runtime is not present it downloads and installs it before it downloads and installs your AIR application. The whole experience is remarkably similar to the Flash Express Install so most users should feel comfortable with the process. If (like me) you’re curious as to how the badge functions technically you can view the ActionScript 2.0 source and Badge FLA which are included in the SRC directory of the AIR SDK

Note: At the time of writing the AIR SDK contained an outdated version of the badge. The original badge had some debug code in it and the looks were a little underwhelming (hey it’s beta!). Fortunately Adobe has already updated the badge with amongst other things, a much improved look, just like the AIR samples page. The updated badge has yet to make it into the SDK but you can download it from Adobe. I’ll be using the updated badge for this tutorial.

1. Create your background image for the badge

Create a 215px x 100px image to be used as the background for the badge. The default size for the badge is 217px x 180px, if you deviate from this you will need to adjust your image size accordingly. 

2. Configure the badge SWF

The badge accepts 5 parameters in the form of Flashvars:

1. appname: The name of your AIR application.
2. appurl: The URL to your AIR application. (http://www.mydomain.com/myAirApp.air)
3. airversion: Currently “1.0.M4″
4. buttoncolor:  Hex value of color for the Install button (default is gray)
5. messgagecolor: Hex value of the color for the text message(s) below the badge (default is black)
6. imageurl: URL of the background image(step 1) for the badgeThe badge code will end-up looking something like this:

Of course most all of you are going to want to use some type of Flash detection script. Adobe has provided one in the samples directory of the badge SDK, but I prefer the most excellent SWFObject.That’s basically it. As you can see the process for creating a badge for your AIR application is painless and unless you want to modify the stock SWF you don’t need Flash authoring. If you’re creating an AIR application for distribution I highly recommend taking time to create a badge, believe me your users will thank you.

The correct MIME type for AIR apps is:

application/vnd.adobe.air-application-installer-package+zip (sheew that’s a mouthful!)

Consult the documentation of your preffered web server for instructions on setting MIME types.

Mike Chambers just twittered/announced the onAIR Summer Bus Tour. Looks like a motley crew of Flex, AIR and Javascript developers are going to pile into a 12 person Prevhost bus and travel to 18 cities over July, August and September.  They’ll be hosting free developer conferences for anyone interested in learning more about Adobe AIR.

Checkout the onAIR Tour web site, it has quite a bit of info even at this early date. They’ll have a “Live From the Bus” feed (oh that should produce some interesting entertainment!) and there’s even an API for the Tour.

I’m excited to see that my nearest “big” city of Portland Oregon is on the tour schedule. Hopefully some of my peeps from COWPU will join me on a trip over the mountain in July.

• Apollo Camp t-shirt
• Nice little Apollo  Camp sticker (I think I’ll put it on my MBP
• Lynda.com Apollo training DVD by none other than Mike Chambers
• Of Course Apollo Alpha 1
• AND THE BIG ITEM…A FULLY LICENSED COPY OF FLEX BUILDER 2 WITH CHARTING!

On the way into the Adobe offices they asked us Windows or Mac and handed us our copy of FB. The guy in front of me said “This is a demo right”. When the gal said no, I was blown away. Thanks Adobe! I’m deeply impressed. Gotta go the keynote is about to start. More later.