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Happy 2nd birthday, Adobe AIR!

by Serge Jespers on 25. Feb, 2010 in AIR

Aaah… They grow up so fast… Adobe AIR is 2 years old today. With AIR 2 now coming to mobile devices like Android devices and Apple’s phones it’s clear that AIR has a bright future ahead.

The AIR 2 release is just around the corner but you can already start building and testing your apps with the public beta available on Adobe Labs.

If you’re interested in learning about the new features AIR 2 has to offer, check out my presentation slides from FITC and the demo files that go with it. Also check out Tour De Flex for more code samples.

I can’t wait to see what you guys are going to build with AIR 2 and its new capabilities!

Photo by Lee Turner.

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Help improve Flash Player 10.1 and AIR 2.0

by Serge Jespers on 08. Feb, 2010 in AIR, Flash Player

Adobe engineering is headed into the final stretch of development of Flash Player 10.1 and AIR 2.0. We need community help to identify quality issues with your deployed and in-development content. While both Flash and AIR are tested extensively internally, every beta we receive valuable feedback from the Flash community and beyond.

Here is how you can get involved:

Download and install Flash Player 10.1 Beta 2 and AIR 2.0 Beta 2
Test the new beta runtimes with your content and applications.
Log bugs at bugs.adobe.com. Engineering teams use your bug reports to reproduce errors and improve the runtime quality.

As far as beta timelines, beta 3 releases are a few weeks away and release candidates are expected within 60 days. Your involvement and assistance during this critical development window are really important and will only improve Flash Player and AIR quality.

Please also help spread the word about the beta process via Twitter:
Improve Flash 10.1 & AIR 2.0 via Beta 2 http://bit.ly/aN4Qk0 READ & RT #Flash #AIR #QUALITY

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Package Assistant for AIR 2 update

by Serge Jespers on 05. Feb, 2010 in AIR

Just before the holidays, I released an alpha version of my AIR 2 Package Assistant application. As many of you know, AIR 2 allows you to build native installers. The only downside is that you have to use the command line in order to package these native installers.

I have just narrowed down the possible solution for the only reported problem. Some of you got an “Invalid input” error message and the packaging failed. I think this may be caused by forgetting to include the icons you use for the app. You have to include these in the final step where you add any additional files to the package.

I also updated the application so it now works with the AIR 2 Beta 2 runtime, which is available on Adobe Labs.

The Package Assistant application should still be considered in alpha phase. If you don’t mind testing alpha builds, go ahead and download the updated application. (Don’t forget to read these notes.)

If you find any other bugs or if adding the icons did not resolve the “invalid input” error message, feel free to leave a comment or email me directly.

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AIR 2 Package Assistant “public alpha”

by Serge Jespers on 23. Dec, 2009 in AIR, projects

I already sneaked this application last week but in case you missed that: I am building an application that makes it easier to package native installers for AIR 2.0. Instead of having to fiddle around with the command line to create installers, this wizard style application makes it very easy and straightforward.

Now before you go and install this application, there are a couple of things you should know.

This is an early version of the application. It may not do what you thought it would do and it may even explode ;-). If that is the case, please let me know. I’m releasing it now to get some feedback and to improve version 2 ;-) The application should be considered alpha quality.
It is currently OSX only. I ran in to a little snag with the Windows version but will try to get around that ASAP.
It currently only supports PKCS12 code signing certificates.
It’s not yet very user friendly if you make a mistake… If you for instance mess up your cert passcode, you’ll have to start over again. I’m also not saving the path to ADT.. These things are “on the list”.
Additional files are supported but are always relative to the folder that holds the main SWF… This is one that needs a lot of testing. If your setup does not work, please let me know.
If you have feature requests or you find a bug or something weird, please let me know. Just leave a comment to this post, send me an email or use the contact form on my blog.
Did I already mention that this should be considered alpha quality?
I think it’s fairly obvious but just in case: This application requires the AIR 2.0 runtime.

So… You’re still here. That must mean that you’re a geek like me and you don’t mind testing early builds of applications ;-). Good… Go ahead and download the application.

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Introducing: Package Assistant (AIR 2 package utility built with AIR 2)

by Serge Jespers on 17. Dec, 2009 in AIR

Two of the most requested features for AIR were the ability to create native installers and to launch/talk to native applications. Among other new features, AIR 2 allows you to do that. To build these native installers you have to use the command line compiler.

A while back I was thinking if it would be possible to write an AIR application that would talk to ADT (the command line compiler) and that would make it easier to compile a native installer. And here it is… Well… It’s not quite finished yet but it’s very close. I just couldn’t wait sharing this screencap with you guys because I think it’s a great example of how powerful AIR has become.

The wizard style application allows you to easily identify the files it needs and after just 4 steps you simply
hit the compile button. A lot easier than fiddling around with the command line ;-)

I should have this finished before the holidays so stay tuned!

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Microwave oven powered by Adobe AIR

by Serge Jespers on 08. Dec, 2009 in AIR

Oh wow… Just last April Fool’s day, I joked about this… and now it’s real!

From Crunchgear:

Two researchers from Japan’s Keio University (which yours truly attended just until recently by the way) have developed a kitchen appliance aimed at the total web geek in you, a YouTube-powered microwave. The so-called Castoven [JP] is based on a conventional, unbranded model of “good quality” but sports a 10.4-inch LCD screen in the door panel.

The main idea is to display a YouTube video whose length depends on the time you need to heat up what’s inside the Castoven. Say, you want to prepare a lunch box that takes 3.30 minutes to be ready. The Castoven would then automatically pull a video from YouTube with that length and display it on the screen until the meal is finished

The oven is powered by an AIR application that runs on your computer and gets YouTube videos through its API.

castoven-620x396

This is obviously just the tip of the iceberg. I’m sure you can imagine this with cooking videos, news broadcasts etc.

Ok… So I joked about this a while back and it became a reality. How’s this for the next crazy idea: An AIR/Flash Player powered fridge. The application will suggest recipes based on what’s in your fridge and will tell you when items in it have expired. In the morning it shows you the latest news and weather updates and it can even tell you how much power/money it is using and how to lower the cost. It also tracks your purchases so that it can alert you of promotions in your local supermarket… And obviously all presented in a nice, user-friendly UI. You have 6 months… Go!

Flash on!

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Raising the bar… again: FP10.1 & AIR2 betas on Labs

by Serge Jespers on 17. Nov, 2009 in AIR, Flash Platform, Flash Player, labs

Wohooow… It’s always great to wake up to new toys to play with! Flash Player 10.1 and AIR2.0 are now available on Adobe Labs.

This is a very exciting release for Adobe. Not only is it the first time that we sim-ship Flash Player and AIR for all 3 major operating systems (Mac, Windows & Linux), Flash Player 10.1 is also the first runtime release of the Open Screen Project. While we’re only releasing the beta version of Flash Player 10.1 for the desktop we do plan to roll out additional betas prior to the release with more features, performance improvements, new tooling options and support for mobile platforms. I’ve been lucky enough to play with some smart phones that already have Flash Player 10.1 and I am absolutely amazed to see the performance on these devices. It’s also great to finally have FP10 in the browser on a mobile device. It’s great to see you can now have the full web in your mobile browser!

We’ve already talked about and demoed some of the new features at MAX. Check out the feature page on Labs for a complete list of new features in Flash Player 10.1 and Christian Cantrell’s blog for a comprehensive list of new features in AIR. Christian also has a bunch of code samples on his blog demonstrating the new features. Also check out Adobe TV for more demos and tutorials.

Don’t forget… These are pre-release BETA releases. While the Flash Player and AIR teams do their very best to maintain backward compatibility, things may break. And that is exactly why we do these public betas. If you do come across an application that doesn’t work, make sure you tell us about it!

I can’t wait to see what you guys are going to build with this new set of building blocks… Flash on!

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Reducing CPU usage in Adobe AIR

by Serge Jespers on 20. Oct, 2009 in AIR, How-to

jonnie_hallman Jonnie Hallman from DestroyTwitter fame and recently employed by the Adobe XD team, wrote a great article about how he reduced CPU usage in his AIR application.

“AIR gets a bad rap for being a bloated runtime, using up a lot of precious memory and CPU. Although a lot of AIR applications seem to fall into this trap, it doesn’t have to be this way. There are a number of techniques you can use to develop a lightweight application that rivals native programs in terms of performance,” he says.

The article explains what framerate throttling is and how best to implement it in your application.

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Flash Player 10.1 & AIR 2.0: It’s not just about new features…

by Serge Jespers on 16. Oct, 2009 in AIR, Flash Player

fp_air_logo Recently I’ve been getting a lot of questions about the performance and stability of the Flash Player and AIR runtimes. I got another one just this morning and thought it would be a good idea to write a quick blog post about this.

Let’s talk about Flash Player first. In all honesty, I also encounter the occasional Flash Player crash in Safari on Mac OS X. Many times this seems to be caused by an uncaught exception. Some of these crashes could have been avoided if the developer had written the code to catch that exception. Flash Player 10.1 will make this a lot easier with a global exception handler.

Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not trying to push this back in to the developer’s shoes but it is something to think about. And just to be totally clear: Flash Player shouldn’t crash on an uncaught exception. That said, you should know that the Flash Player team is aware of some stability issues and is working on that. They are also constantly monitoring our public bug base so if you do encounter a crash, make sure you log it in the bug base! You can rest assured that stability and performance are always on top of the agenda of the Flash Player team.

I also keep hearing people say that the AIR runtime uses too much of the available system resources. Obviously this depends heavily on what the application is actually doing at that time. If your application is suffering from this symptom, make sure you read these blog posts. Soon after reading these three posts, your AIR application will use less than 1% of CPU while idle. In AIR 2.0 the target is to reduce the idle CPU usage to 0%. Early tests with AIR 2.0 show a 30% memory reduction and a 50% reduction in JavaScript CPU consumption. We’re also targeting a 40% reduction in runtime size.

We haven’t announced any specific dates for the release of Flash Player 10.1 and AIR 2.0 but make sure you keep an eye on Adobe Labs and our blogs.

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Building CPU efficient Adobe AIR apps

by Serge Jespers on 04. Jun, 2009 in AIR, Best practices, How-to

One of the biggest complaints we hear a lot about AIR applications is that they use too much memory and/or too much CPU. Sure… Adobe needs to (and will) make investments in improving the performance of AIR and Flash Player but you as a developer can already make some improvements to your app as well. I know this has been discussed before but repetition never hurt anyone. ;-) If you’re having issues with the app that you are building, you should definitely check out Arno’s blog post about this very topic.

With just 4 simple tips, you can dramatically improve the memory/CPU usage footprint of your application.

Use the lowest framerate possible
Dynamically change the framerate to fit your application needs
Only use Event.ENTER_FRAME handlers when necessary
Have as few Event.ENTER_FRAME handlers and Timers as possible

Check out Arno’s blog for more info on how to implement these tips. The AIR team also has a blog post about this topic.

If you have any other tips that you are currently using, please feel free to leave a comment. Also, if you have any questions regarding this topic, please feel free to get in touch.

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