Benefits Of Adobe AIR

With the Adobe® AIR™ runtime, you can deliver branded rich Internet applications (RIAs) on the desktop that give you a closer connection to your customer.

Adobe AIR uses the same proven, cost-effective technologies used to build web applications, so development and deployment is rapid and low risk. You can use your existing web development resources to create engaging, branded applications that run on all major desktop operating systems.

The benefits are extensive. By using Adobe AIR as part of your RIA strategy, you can boost productivity, extend your market reach, enhance customer satisfaction, improve customer retention, lower costs, and increase profits.

Business Benefits

Companies like eBay, AOL, and NASDAQ are already using Adobe AIR to deliver engaging RIAs to their users' desktops. With Adobe AIR, you can:

• Establish a more persistent connection with existing customers.
• Deliver fully branded experiences with desktop functionality.
• Leverage existing personnel, processes, and infrastructure.
• Develop and deliver RIAs efficiently using proven Adobe technology.
• Increase the ROI of your web investments.

If you have any AIR Usage Benefits, please share with us through comment.

Can AIR Appliations run in a Web Browser

Yes, You can test the AIR Applications in the web browser. AIR uses the same rendering engine as Apple's Safari, so that browser will provide the most accurate results (and it's available on both Mac OS X and Windows, as of version 3). Firefox, which also run on both platforms, should also work as well. Firefox has an additional benefit - its excellent Javascript debugging tools.

Although you could, theoretically, test your applications in Internet Explorer, I would advise against doing so for two reasons.

1) The Javascript may not behave the same in IE as it will in your AIR apps (this is a common Ajax Problem).

2) IE is a notoriously tricky browser that makes even Web development and testing much harder than it should be(in my opinion).

Problems with Delivering Applications via Browser

As web applications have become more complex, they have begun to push the boundaries of both the capabilities of the browser and the usability of the application. As their popularity grows, these issues become more apparent and important and highlight the fact that there are still a number of significant issues for both developers and end-users when deploying and using applications within the browser.

The web browser was originally designed to deliver and display HTML-based documents. Indeed, the basic design of the browser has not shifted significantly from this purpose. This fundamental conflict between document- and application-focused functionality creates a number of problems when deploying applications via the browser.

Conflicting UI

Applications deployed via the browser have their own user interface, which often conflicts with the user interface of the browser. This application-within-an-application model often results in user interfaces that conflict with and contradict each other. This can lead to user confusion in the best cases, and application failure in the worst cases.

The classic example of this is the browser's Back button. The Back button makes sense when browsing documents, but it does not always make sense in the context of an application. Although a number of solutions attempt to solve this problem, they are applied to applications inconsistently, and users may not know whether a specific application supports the Back button or whether it will force their application to unload, causing it to lose its state and data.

Distance from the Desktop

Due in part to the web security model (which restricts access to the user's machine), applications that run in the browser often do not support the types of user interactions with the operating system that people expect from applications. For example, you cannot drag a file into a browser-based application and have the application act on that file. Nor can the web application interact with other applications on the user's computer.

Primarily Online Experience

Because web applications are delivered from a server and do not reside on the user's machine, web applications are primarily an online experience. Although attempts are underway to make offline web-based applications possible (through plugins and HTML 5), they do not provide a consistent development model and they fail to work across different browsers, or they require users to install additional extensions to the browser. In addition, they often require users to interact with and manage their application and browser in complex and unexpected ways. However, this is an area where the browser looks to make progress over the next couple of years.

Lowest Common Denominator

Finally, as applications become richer and more complex and begin to push the boundaries of JavaScript and DHTML, developers are increasingly faced with differences in browser functionality and API implementations. Although these issues can often be overcome with browser-specific code, they lead to code that

a) is more difficult to maintain and scale;
b) takes time away from function-driven development of feature functionality.

Although JavaScript frameworks are a popular way to help address these issues, they can offer only the functionality provided by the browser, and often they resort to the lowest common denominator of features among browsers to ease the development model. The result for JavaScript- or DHTML-based applications is a lowest common denominator user experience and interaction model, as well as increased development, testing, and deployment costs for the developer.

As browser continue to mature this lowest common denominator of usable functionality will improve, but this is a process that can take a significant amount of time (often years) as new browsers are released, and old browsers are no longer used.

Does RIA(Rich Internet Applications) is the solution to these problems?

Browser vs. desktop

The browser has become the preferred way for delivering many applications because it allows easy deployment across operating systems and simplified application maintenance. Plus, the modern programming languages used in the browser enable rapid application design and development.

The Adobe® AIR™ runtime complements the browser by providing the same application development and deployment benefits while adding desktop integration, local data access, and enhanced branding opportunities. An emerging design pattern for rich Internet applications (RIAs) is to deliver a browser-based version of an RIA in the browser for all users and an RIA on the desktop for more active users.

Feature	RIAs in the browser	RIAs on the desktop
Installation	No application installation is necessary.	Applications install seamlessly from the browser or download and install like a traditional desktop application.
Application delivery	Applications can be easily discovered, explored, and used.	Installed applications have more persistence, power, and functionality.
Application updates	Applications are updated by pushing new content to a website.	AIR provides APIs that allow applications to be updated as easily as pushing new content to a website.
Multiple operating system support	Applications run on multiple operating systems and browsers.	AIR applications are cross-platform, so they can be installed on and run on multiple operating systems.
Programming languages	JavaScript is provided by browsers and ActionScript™ is provided by Adobe Flash® Player.	Integrated JavaScript and ActionScript virtual machines are compatible with the browser.
Background capability	RIAs can run only in a visible browser window.	Applications can run in the background or provide notifications like traditional desktop applications.
Persistence	Activity is limited to the browser session. When the browser is closed, information is lost.	RIAs are installed and available on the desktop. They store information locally and operate offline.
Desktop integration	Applications are sandboxed, so desktop integration is limited.	Applications can access a desktop file system, clipboard, drag and drop events, system tray/notifications, and more.
User interface control	RIAs run within a browser window that has its own controls, branding, and integration with the desktop.	RIAs have a customizable user interface and desktop integration, enabling branded experiences.
Data storage	Applications have limited local storage, which the browser can destroy.	Applications have unlimited local storage and access to a local database, plus encrypted local storage.

what can Adobe AIR Applications do

The Adobe AIR applications you develop can

• Access files and directories on the user's computer
• Integrate a client-side database
• Securely store data in an encrypted format
• Contain custom windows and menus
• Interact with network resources, like Websites and servers
• Tap into the computers's clipboard, supporting cut, copy, paste, plus drag in and out functionality
• Play sounds and videos
• Display PDFs

In short, an application written in AIR can do pretty much anything you can think of!

IF you still need convincing, consider that the tools required for freating and running AIR applications are free and supported by an excellent company, Adobe. If the way in which the Adobe handled the invention, promotion, and distribution of the Portable Document Format(PDF) is any gauge, the future looks bright for Adobe AIR.

Do you have any such tips to share? Please post them in the comments below.

Why should I use Adobe AIR?

The first and most compelling reason is that using Adobe AIR is easy. In all likelihood you'll just apply the knowledge you already have. In the worst case scenario, if you have limited to no experience with HTML and Javascript, rest assured that few technologies are as approachable as these. The learning curve for using Adobe AIR is therefore short but the upside is huge.

A second but very strong reason to use Adobe AIR is that it automatically generates cross-platform applications. The programs you create will equally well on Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux regardless of the operating system on which they were written. Adobe AIR was designed specifically with this in mind, and there are but few areas in which operating system-specific steps need to be taken.

A third consideration to note is that with Adobe AIR you're creating graphical applications: programs that are visible, that run outside of any consule window or terminal application, and that can take full advantage of the user's mouse and keyword. This may not sound revelatory to you, but when using other technologies(like C or C++) to make an application, creating a graphical application as opposed to a command-line utility isn't that simple.

Next post - "what can Adobe AIR do"

Do you have any such tips to share? Please post them in the comments below.

Adobe AIR

Adobe AIR(Adobe Integrated Runtime) is a fantastic new technology that greatly expands the ways in which you can create desktop applications.

Traditionally, programs like Microsoft Word, the Firefox Web Browser, and Adobe Reader have been written in a programming language like C or C++. Learning such technologies, while not hard, takes some effort, and making graphical applications, let alone cross-platform apps, using them in an even larger hurdle.

Now, with Adobe AIR you can use whatever Web development know-how you have be it Adobe Flash, Adobe Flex or standard Ajax(HTML and Javascript) - to create fully functional desktop applications that will run equally well on Windows, Mac OSX and Linux.

Next post - "Why Should I use Adobe AIR?".