Detecting your Flash Player Version

The Capabilities Class in the flash.system package is perhaps a class that most people do not use. It is a very useful class that contains several useful properties and functions that can provide a world of information. I use the class regularly for finding the screen-resolution for my AIR apps using the screenResolutionX and screenResolutionY properties.

Here’s a small app using the class that detects the Flash Player Version and the player type – Debug or Release. This can be used as a FlashPlayer Version Checker.

Application | Source

sandbox violation – find answers to your Flex questions…

• How can we speed up the performance of DataGrid when there is a lot of data?
• How do we reduce SWF size so that the download times are lesser?
• My Flex application works fine when run from Flex Builder, but when deployed to server, I get security related errors. Why?

You always had questions like this and never knew where to go to get answers? Anirudh Sasikumar, a Technical Evangelist at Adobe has created a project called sandboxviolation. In his own words, sand box violation is  “for the flex and flash community where users can post questions / answers and vote a question or answer up or down earning reputation points along the way”.

Its available in 2 flavors:

Flex App on Google App Engine | An AIR app with offline support

Check it out, benefit from it, post your questions, answer other’s questions, vote answers up/ down and help the community churn high quality content…

Addendum: Anirudh’s written a Syntax Highlighting in AS3 as part of the above project which is awesome and then opensourced the code which has now created quite a buzz. Check it out too 🙂

High Performance AIR Applications

Oliver Goldman from the AIR Team did a presentation at MAX on “High Performace AIR Applications”. In case you missed it, catch it here.

Invoking an AIR app from another AIR app

Today I was just trying to see how to launch one AIR app from another… The idea struck me when I was reading –Installing and running an AIR applications from a web page documentation on livedocs and I thought it is worth posting here.

There is an air.swf file file at [http://airdownload.adobe.com/air/browserapi/air.swf]. One can invoke a launchApplication() method on the file to interact with the AIR runtime and launch installed AIR applications from a web page in a browser. I decided to use the same file to launch AIR apps from another AIR app. To get this working, the trick is very simple:

1. Get the applicationID and the publisherID of the app intended to be invoked
   

   applicationID can be obtained, either from the author of the application or looking at the application.xml file funder the META-INF/AIR folder in the application install directory.

   publisherID can be obtained, either from the author of the application or in the publisherid file under the META-INF/AIR folder in the application install directory.

2. First load the air.swf in an instance of the Loader class and set the LoaderContext as mentioned here under “Loading the air.swf file” heading.
3. Do a check if the application is installed using the code under “Checking from a web page if an AIR application is installed” heading.
4. Use the following code to launch the application
   
var appID:String = enter applicationID here;
var pubID:String = enter publisherID here;
airSWF.launchApplication(appID, pubID);
5. Done…

Note:

This would only work if the application.xml file of the application that you want to launch has the allowBrowserInvocation property set to true.

Here is an example of 2 apps, AIRAppLauncher and AIRAppLaunched. AIRAppLauncher can be used to launch AIRAppLaunched. You will have to sign the AIRAppLaunched, export as AIR, extract the publisherID, install it and use that in AIRAppLauncher for the whole workflow to work. You can download the archive here…

Adobe riathon – registrations open…

If you are a Flex/ Flash /  AIR developer in India and think you can be the one behind the coolest of all  RIAs, you cannot afford to miss this event! Put on your RIA development shoes, build the coolest app that you can imagine and send it to us on or before 26^th November 2008. If your application catches our attention, you will be invited to a very special event on the 29^th of November at Grand Ashok, Bangalore where the top applications will go on stage for a demo showdown! This is your chance to Flash your design skills, Flex your coding muscles and AIR your demos in front of an elite judge panel & the Adobe community.

The Grand winner / winning team will walk away with a groovy Apple IPhone.

The runners up will take home with them a Sony home theater system.

What’s more, there are loads of IPod Nano’s, shuffles and Adobe branded goodies to be won.

This event also brings to you  an exclusive preview on the new developments in the Adobe Flash Platform. Experience the Flash Catalyst (code name Thermo), Gumbo(code name for the upcoming version of Flex) ,FXG and Flash Player 10.

Register today at http://adoberiathon.eventbrite.com

For more information and contest rules & regulations, please visit http://adoberiathon.wordpress.com

Adobe Flex 3 with AIR ACE Exam is available now

This is something the Flex community has been waiting for some time. Adobe Flex 3 with AIR ACE (Adobe Certified Expert) is out now. Go ahead and get certified !!!

Register for a test at Pearson VUE or Thomson Prometric

Here is the link to the Adobe Flex 3 and AIR ACE Preparation Guide

riathon – An RIA Hackathon by Adobe India. Coming soon!

<riathon>:: hack . play . win – the Adobe way.

The Flash & Flex community in India are a set of passionate individuals who really love the platform. Adobe is bringing a RIA Hackathon for designers and developers on the Adobe Technology Platform (i.e. Flash, Flex & AIR)

Come join us for a day of fun, take a crack at creating amazing RIAs with your favorite Adobe platform and win fabulous prizes.

If you are interested, leave your details here and we’ll get back to you…

The early bird catches the discount – mx:devsummit registrations open.

Register for mx:devsummit here [http://www.endtoend.in/ete2008/adobe/ria/micro]

You would see early bird discounts for well… early birds, till Sep 3rd. So, get together your colleges and register ASAP. There are also group discounts that people can take advantage of. See the chart below for all price details.

	Registration Type Early Bird/ Delegate(Before 3rd Sep) Regular Rate Per Delegate (After 3rd Sep) Individual Rs.4500. Rs.5000 2-5 delegates Rs.4000 Rs.4500 6-9 delegates Rs.3500 Rs.4000 10-14 delegates Rs.3000 Rs 3500 15 and more delegates Rs.2500 Rs.3000

One of the problems that people might have is that, according to the event website, like any of the usual conferences, Group Registration Participation Rules say that:

All group registrants must be employed by the same company.

You can’t get so many people from your company? Dont worry !

I realize that this might be a problem as a lot of places like Mumbai, Pune, Ahmedabad… etc have a strong Flex user community, but cannot get groups of 15 developers to come for the conference from a company. This is usually due to the small sizes of the companies themselves, compared to those in other cities.

So, I have worked with the registration desk, so that even a “community or group of individual developers”(though it sounds oxymoronish, that’s exactly what it is) to get group discounts for the event. Here’s what you need to do:

1. Make sure that all your group members register into the event website
2. One person take the responsibility of being a group leader/ co-ordinator (can be a user group manager for instance) and make a DD for the total amount for all the people after discount. Say you and 9 of your friends are signing up for a group discount, make sure that you send only one DD for the amount, in this case, for 3000×10 = Rs.30,000. Please not that if you are opting for the group discount, it has to  be in one DD!
3. Mail the DD to the address on the page
   
4. Also, send a mail out to adobe@endtoend.in and quote the community promo code “raghuonflex” in the subject and have the following info from each delegate in the body of the email:
   • Name,Company & Email  of each delegate
   • DD Details

And lo, you also can avail your discounts… So, Sign up fast. Network with fellow Flex developers to rialiaze your dreams and save money ofcourse:)

See you all at the conference…

Presenting mx:devsummit Bangalore

<mx:devsummit/> is going to be on 10th & 11th of September 2008.

Venue: Taj Residency, Bangalore

Dates: 10-11 September 2008

Some Early Details

Its is going to be a two day event (as you might have seen from the dates) with two tracks on each day and some common sessions. The conference is designed such that both people who are looking to explore flex and who are already taken the dive can find information that can take them forward in the exciting world of RIAs.

We have Ben coming down again, so get ready…

AIR Application Security from the User’s Point of View

The AIR runtime can be looked upon as one that mashes up Web and Desktop Worlds. It allows Web developers to now write applications for the desktop using familiar technologies like Flash, Flex, HTML & JS. There has been a lot of debate lately on what security holes these would expose and how attackers can exploit them and how we as common folk can guard against it.

This warrants a look at the AIR Security model and the hooks that the platform provides to guard yourself (a user) against attackers…

But, before I go forward I cannot but stress one fact

As a user, consider AIR apps as Desktop applications (because that is what they are) and ensure as much care while installing them as you would when you insall “any other desktop application”. DO NOT consider them like websites because you are now giving the app direct access to your system (again… Just like “any other desktop application”). Further, quoting the AIR1.0 Security Whitepaper:

“In general, users should not install any desktop application (including an AIR application) that comes from a source that they do not trust, or that cannot be verified. The burden of proof on security for native applications is equally true for AIR applications as it is for other installable applications.”