Tag Archives: update

Auto update API for AIR Native Installer Apps

by Serge Jespers on 25. Aug, 2010 in AIR

If you’ve played around with native installers for AIR 2, you probably already found out that you cannot use the update framework. My fellow evangelist Piotr just released a solution for that.

Piotr’s NativeApplicationUpdater library works in exactly the same way as the update framework you use for AIR applications. When your app starts it loads an XML file that has all the update information. If an update is available you will be prompted to download and install it. Piotr actually uses another AIR 2 feature to launch the downloaded native installer. By opening the package with openWithDefaultApplication() the installer launches and installs the update.

I’ll definitely add this to the next release of my Package Assistant application (an update is coming soon!).

Check out the video where Piotr explains how it works and download the library from Google Code.

If you haven’t played with native installers for AIR 2 and want to learn more, then check out my video tutorial.

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AIR 1.1 adds localization and performance improvements

by Serge Jespers on 18. Jun, 2008 in AIR, News


AIR 1.1 is out the door and even though this is a dot release, that doesn’t mean there’s not much new to tell. AIR 1.1 includes the following new capabilities:

  • Installation and other runtime dialog boxes have been translated into:
    • Brazilian Portuguese, Chinese (Traditional and Simplified), French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Russian and Spanish
  • Support for building internationalized applications, including keyboard input for double-byte languages
  • Support for localizing the name and description attributes in the application descriptor file
  • Support for localizing error messages, such as SQLError.detailID  and SQLError.detailArguments, in the SQLite database
  • Addition of Capabilities.languages property to obtain an array of preferred UI languages as set by the operating system
  • HTML button labels and default menus, such as context menus and the Mac menu bar,
    have been localized to all supported languages
  • Support for certificate migration from a self-signed application to one that chains to a
    certificate of authority (CA)
  • Support for Microsoft Windows XP Tablet PC Edition and support for 64-bit editions of Windows Vista® Home Premium, Business, Ultimate, or Enterprise.
  • Addition of File.spaceAvailable : API to obtain the amount of disk space available on a disk
  • Addition of NativeWindow.supportsTransparency property to determine whether a window can be drawn as transparent by the current operating system
  • Bug fixes and memory improvements

To start working with these new capabilities and performance improvements, there are updates available for your favorite development environment.
For Flex Builder, see this Flex Builder Technote.
For Dreamweaver, download the updated version of the Adobe AIR extension for Dreamweaver.
For Flash, follow the instructions in this Flash Technote.

Additionally, Aptana Studio (for AJAX development) is also already updated to support AIR 1.1

Download the updated runtime from http://get.adobe.com/air/. Get more information here (PDF).

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Updating AIR applications

by Serge Jespers on 16. Jun, 2008 in How-to, onAIR Tour

My presentation at the On AIR tour through Europe was about signing, deploying and updating your AIR applications. If you didn’t make it to the tour or just want to read up on these topics, I wrote three separate posts about them on the train somewhere between Prague and Munich.

This is probably the most important step to take when you are building your application and it should probably be the first thing you do. Let’s say someone found a bug in your application and you fixed it in a newer version. How are you going to tell users about that bug-fix if you don’t have an update mechanism in place? AIR has everything on board to make updating applications a breeze, both for you and the user of your application.
(more…)

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Heads up: Prepare for the Flash Player 9 security update

by Serge Jespers on 27. Mar, 2008 in Flash

Adobe is preparing a security update for Flash Player 9 that will be released next month (April 2008) to fix previously disclosed (see Security Bulletin ABSP07-20 and Security Advisory APSA07-06) vulnerabilities and to further strengthen the security of the Flash Player.

These are the main things you have to watch out for:

  • A socket policy file will always be required for all socket connections
    Important when you use sockets or XMLSockets, regardless of the domain to which you are connecting
  • A policy file will be required to send headers across domains
    Important when you use addRequestHeader or URLRequest.requestHeaders in any network API call when sending or loading data cross-domain or you provide access to content on remote domains as a web service provide. This applies to all methods of loading data including solutions like AMF-PHP (see Wade Arnold’s blog for an example crossdomain policy file for AMF-PHP)
  • The allowScriptAccess default will always be “sameDomain”
    Important when you have SWFs that are exported for Flash Player 7 (SWF7) or earlier that communicate with the hosting HTML by any means
  • “javascript:” URLs will be prohibited in networking APIs, except getURL(), navigateToURL(), and HTML-enabled text fields
    Important when you use “javascript:” through network APIs to communicate outside a SWF

Check out Adobe Devnet for more in-depth information.

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