Flash® Catalyst™ CS5 Bible

Chapter 18. Creating a Project for AIR

IN THIS CHAPTER

• Understanding AIR

• Convert a project to AIR

• Completing an AIR project

• Installing an AIR application

• Deploying AIR applications from Catalyst

In the spring of 2007, Adobe released a public preview of a new technology code-named Apollo. About a year later in February 2008, Adobe released the final version, which had been renamed Adobe Integrated Runtime (AIR).

AIR, put simply, allows Web designers and developers to leverage their existing skill sets in Flex and Flash, or even HTML, CSS, and JavaScript to develop applications for the desktop.

Prior to AIR's release, desktop application development was done solely by high-end programmers using languages such as Java or C# that required years of training.

Currently, anyone with knowledge of HTML, CSS, and JavaScript or anyone designing or developing in the Flash platform can create an application that users can install on their computers and run without a browser. Better yet, they can now develop applications that will run on any desktop, regardless of the operating system.

Understanding AIR

AIR works by providing a universal runtime. That is, AIR is an application that must be installed by users before they can install your application.

Most of the complexity of building traditional desktop applications had to do with the challenges of interfacing with operating systems and hardware; drastic differences between the ways in which operating systems work further complicated matters.

AIR, however, ...