Space of Flex/AIR technologies

Today I also started working on the 1.2 release, which will improve java path discovery on the Windows platform. I’m planning to reuse code written by my colleague Serge Jespers for Package Assistant Pro. It is simple native C code that checks the Windows registry to find where Java is installed.

Today I published a microsite (http://amf.riaspace.com/) on my blog dedicated to AMF communication. The goal of it is to gather necessary information needed for quick start with AMF.

You will find there:

• Publicly available AMF services for the start without setting up your own server environment
• Code snippets demonstrating how to utilize AMF services
• Video tutorials on how to setup your own Flex/Zend_Amf projects
• Demo applications with a source code

At the moment I’m hosting only PHP based services but I’m also thinking about Java based backend to be able to play with messaging.

I just released a new version of Flerry that fixes a problem with transferring large object structures from Java to Flex. This release is thanks to Mohammed Abbas who contributed the patch. Again I’m really happy that this project is evolving and the community is contributing to it actively.

To start working with Flerry go ahead and download the flerry and flerry-demo projects. You may also find my previous posts (Post 1 | Post 2) helpful.

I would like to proudly announce that Flerry 1.1.0 was released! For those of you that don’t know what is Flerry, it’s a Flex-Java bridge for Adobe AIR 2.0. This new release brings possibility to call/initiate communication from Java to Flex/AS3 code. This functionality was solely developed by Jhonny Everson, big kudos to Jhonny!!! I love when open source really works and community contributes their work, with that said I encourage any of you that use Flerry to commit to the project

You can grab latest FB4 project with Flerry and demo app from here.

Usage is really simple:

First create instance of NativeObject either in MXML or AS3 (binPath is path to jar file with compiled Java source classes):

<flerry:NativeObject id="nativeObject" singleton="true" 
binPath="./jars/flerry-demo.jar"  source="net.riaspace.flerrydemo.MyJavaObject" />

Next subscribe to messages sent from Java side, “sendMsg” parameter defines message identifier:

// Subscribe to receive remote messages.
nativeObject.subscribe("sendMsg", messageHandler);

On the Java side you have static method sendMessage on NativeObject class with message parameter and again message identifier:

NativeObject.sendMessage(map, "sendMsg");

As you probably know by now Flash Builder 4 with Flex 4 were released yesterday. Along with that, new content was published on Adobe TV. You can find there my video describing new styling and theming capabilities in Flex 4 and Flash Builder 4.

UPDATE (31.03.2010): You can also get this video through iTunes and on YouTube.

Other videos also published:

• Build your first desktop application
  Follow along as James Ward shows you how to build your first desktop application using Flash Builder, Flex and AIR.
  
  
• Flash Builder 4 for ColdFusion Developers
  ColdFusion Evangelist Terry Ryan highlights the flexibility of the data-centric features in Flash Builder 4. He shows off the new workflow for wiring a ColdFusion back-end to a Flex front-end.
  
  
• Build a Dashboard Application in Flex 4
  Adobe Platform Evangelist Michael Chaize offers a step-by-step tutorial on building a dashboard application. He walks you through a Flex 4 project created with the Flash Builder 4 IDE.
  
  
• Build your first Flex 4 application
  Platform Evangelist Serge Jespers describes how to build a Flex 4 application using Flash Builder 4. Discover the benefits of controlling components’ properties such as improved efficiency in managing data.
  
  
• Write Flex and PHP code using Flash Builder 4
  Platform Evangelist Mihai Corlan explains how to write Flex and PHP code using Flash Builder 4 and Zend Studio 7.1. He also illustrates how remoting enables your application to consume PHP services.
  
  
• Debug Flex and PHP code using Flash Builder 4
  In this video, Mihai Corlan discusses how to debug the code of a combined Flex and PHP project using Flash Builder 4 and Zend Studio 7.1. He reviews how to use breakpoints to test your application.
  
  
• Define events in Flex 4 with Flash Builder 4
  Platform Evangelist Mihai Corlan shows how to create components with Flash Builder 4 and ActionScript, and he simplifies how to customize an event dispatch in a Flex 4 project.
  
  
• Styling Flex 4 Components with Flash Builder 4
  Piotr Walczyszyn demonstrates the new theming capabilities in Flash Builder 4 and the new features of the CSS engine that come with Flex 4.

Adobe AIR 2.0 Beta 2 was just released; it is available here on Adobe Labs!

New features:

• Enhanced Printer Interaction: New printing support allows finer control of the way content is printed from an AIR application, including the choice of printer, paper size, and number of copies. New APIs allow a developer to retrieve additional printing information, such as printable area, whether the printer will print in color, and whether the print job is currently active. It is also possible to print without displaying the print dialog.

• Support for TLS/SSL socket communication: You can now connect to a server that requires TLSv1 or SSLv3 for socket communications.

• IME API and IME Text Input Enhancement: There are several new features added in this release to support better text input handling with IME software. The new API enhancements are designed for use with the new Flash Text Engine (FTE).

You can find updated sample applications here.

IMPORTANT: Applications built against Adobe AIR 2 Beta 1 will not run using the AIR 2 beta 2 runtime. In order for an AIR 2 Beta 1 application to run on the AIR 2 Beta 2 runtime, the namespace of the Beta 1 application descriptor file must first be updated to “2.0beta2″ and the application must be recompiled using the AIR 2 Beta 2 SDK.

Today I published Flerry on Google Code, a Flex-Java bridge that uses NativeProcess API from Adobe AIR 2.0. Using it is very simple and similar to RemoteObject API in Flex. In fact I reused libraries from BlazeDS to do AMF de/serialization on Java side and on Flex side classes like AsyncToken, RemotingMessage, AcknowledgeMessage and ResultEvent/FaultEvent for eventing.

Here is short snippet how you can use it directly in MXML:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<s:WindowedApplication xmlns:fx="http://ns.adobe.com/mxml/2009" 
    xmlns:s="library://ns.adobe.com/flex/spark" 
    xmlns:mx="library://ns.adobe.com/flex/mx" minWidth="300" minHeight="200" xmlns:flerry="net.riaspace.flerry.*">
    <fx:Script>
        <![CDATA[
            import flash.events.MouseEvent;
 
            import mx.controls.Alert;
            import mx.rpc.events.FaultEvent;
            import mx.rpc.events.ResultEvent;
 
            protected function nativeObject_faultHandler(event:FaultEvent):void
            {
              Alert.show(event.message.toString());
            }
 
            protected function addMethod_resultHandler(event:ResultEvent):void
            {
              txtResult.text = event.result.toString();
            }
 
            protected function btnAdd_clickHandler(event:MouseEvent):void
            {
              nativeObject.add(parseInt(txtValue1.text), parseInt(txtValue2.text));
            }
            ]]>
    </fx:Script>
    <fx:Declarations>
 
    <!-- Declaring NativeObject that points to 
            net.riaspace.flerrydemo.MyJavaObject class in ./jars/flerry-demo.jar -->
    <flerry:NativeObject id="nativeObject" binPath="./jars/flerry-demo.jar" 
            source="net.riaspace.flerrydemo.MyJavaObject"
            fault="nativeObject_faultHandler(event)">
 
      <!-- Declaring NativeMethod with custom result handler, for this example 
              actually result from NativeObject could be used -->
      <flerry:NativeMethod id="addMethod" name="add" 
            result="addMethod_resultHandler(event)" />
 
    </flerry:NativeObject> 
 
  </fx:Declarations>
 
  <s:HGroup verticalAlign="middle" textAlign="center" horizontalCenter="0" verticalCenter="0">
    <s:TextInput id="txtValue1" text="2" width="30" />
    <s:Label text="+" width="30" />
    <s:TextInput id="txtValue2" text="3" width="30" />
    <s:Button id="btnAdd" label="=" width="30" click="btnAdd_clickHandler(event)" />
    <s:TextInput id="txtResult" width="30" editable="false" />
  </s:HGroup>
 
</s:WindowedApplication>

Some NativeObject properties:

• binPath – points to jar file with your Java application
• source – points to java class that this NativeObject maps to
• singleton – sets source class object as singleton
• startupInfoProvider – custom implementation of net.riaspace.flerry.IStartupInfoProvider, by default Flerry comes with JavaStartupInfoProvider that tries to detect where Java is installed on users machine, in other case Error is thrown

In following posts I will explain in details how it all works, for now you can download flerry Flash Builder project with all the source code from here.

ipla lite application was recently released, this is an Adobe AIR/Flex based client of video content published by Polsat group. Polsat is one of the biggest TV stations in Poland. This release is really great news for Mac and Linux users because ipla’s original version released in 2008 was only available for Windows platforms. In this case Adobe AIR brings outstanding capabilities like: video, audio and cross-platform support. At the moment this release allows watching live streaming content, prerecorded TV shows in VOD mode, do video search and navigate through video categories. I know there are other plans to extend it with features known from full Windows version like social networking. Personally I would also like to see capabilities like local video caching (for offline mode watching), Twitter integration, video deeplinking (maybe something similar as we recently introduced for the content from Adobe MAX) – time will show

Here are some screens with application UI:

Raiffeisen Bank Polska has just released first ever full e-Banking solution based on Adobe AIR technology. This release brings full functionality of what was always available via browser built with Flex. This is great news especially for those that have really slow or low bandwidth internet connections at home, office or are connecting with GSM modems, unfortunately this is still reality among Polish internet providers. This application lowers the required bandwidth to the actual minimum, no graphics no layout no html has to be transferred over the wire, only pure data.

This application is a great example of AIR technology itself but also possibility of deploying Flex browser code on the desktop. I’m hoping we will see more integration with desktop in upcoming releases. I can immediately imagine things like: direct desktop notifications of account transactions, stocks rates alerts, upcoming payments alerts, data caching for complex data intensive calculations and analysis (using encrypted SQLite), drag-and-drop transaction confirmations directly from AIR app to desktop or other applications in formats like PDF, XLS etc.

Here are couple of screens with running application:

Application can be downloaded and installed via badge from this location: https://www.r-bank.pl/web/en/air/ this applies only to Polish Raiffeisen Bank customers of course.

Minor version 1.5.2 of Adobe AIR was released last Friday. It is basically a bug fix, security and some reliability issues release. You can get it from here http://get.adobe.com/air/ when installed you can update your *-app.xml namespace to use new version!