Tom Cornilliac » AIR http://www.tomcornilliac.com Flex, AIR and Rich Internet Goodness Wed, 17 Jun 2009 15:40:49 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0 Adobe’s Flex 3.0 and AIR 1.0 released! http://www.tomcornilliac.com/2008/02/adobes-flex-30-and-air-10-released/ http://www.tomcornilliac.com/2008/02/adobes-flex-30-and-air-10-released/#comments Mon, 25 Feb 2008 05:45:42 +0000 Tom Cornilliac http://www.cornilliac.com/blog/?p=52 The title says it all. Here’s some links to the bits.

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/

]]> http://www.tomcornilliac.com/2008/02/adobes-flex-30-and-air-10-released/feed/ 0 The Flex Builder 3 Professional license should be cross-platform http://www.tomcornilliac.com/2008/02/the-flex-builder-3-professional-license-should-be-cross-platform/ http://www.tomcornilliac.com/2008/02/the-flex-builder-3-professional-license-should-be-cross-platform/#comments Fri, 08 Feb 2008 18:17:26 +0000 Tom Cornilliac http://www.cornilliac.com/blog/?p=51
Edit: In a comment below Ted Patrick confirmed that Adobe has indeed already changed the licensing to allow for a virtualized Win/Mac combination. Fantastic News! One more reason to develop on a Mac! (02/08/08 11:42 PST)

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.

]]> http://www.tomcornilliac.com/2008/02/the-flex-builder-3-professional-license-should-be-cross-platform/feed/ 10 Artemis is dead, long live Merapi! http://www.tomcornilliac.com/2008/02/artemis-is-dead-long-live-merapi/ http://www.tomcornilliac.com/2008/02/artemis-is-dead-long-live-merapi/#comments Tue, 05 Feb 2008 17:26:27 +0000 Tom Cornilliac http://www.cornilliac.com/blog/?p=50 Merapi Logo

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)

]]> http://www.tomcornilliac.com/2008/02/artemis-is-dead-long-live-merapi/feed/ 1