Having just spent the last few days tinkering with AIR applications - including some training at the annual Adobe Summit - I'm pretty fired up about AIR!

You can build AIR applications easily with Flex using the beta of Flex Builder 3 but you can also build AIR applications with HTML.

You need the AIR SDK (again, from Adobe Labs) and a text editor (and access to the command line to run the adl and adt SDK programs to run and package AIR applications respectively).

Of course that might be a bit more work than you want to do. In which case, install Aptana - either standalone or as a plugin for Eclipse / Flex Builder - and then install the AIR plugin for Aptana. Now you simply create a new "Adobe AIR" project, fill out the application information wizard, select your JavaScript libraries (it assumes you are building an AJAX application) and off you go!

You can also download the <a href="http://labs.adobe.com/wiki/index.php/AIR:Dreamweaver_CS3_Extension">Adobe AIR Extension for Dreamweaver</a>. I tried this out last night and it worked great, it creates the app.xml needed and provides the ability to test without having to install the app.

@Michael, thanx. I don't have DW CS3 installed so I couldn't try that (I haven't used DW for quite a while but I do plan to try the CS3 version in due course).

I saw the Aptana announcement and reinstalled it (I recently rebuilt my Eclipse install and didn't include Aptana.) I'm really liking the AIR additions, but it's kind of odd that they don't include the full Ext library, given Mike CHambers' comments on it: http://www.mikechambers.com/blog/2007/03/22/fresh-apollo-html-based-aggregator-uses-ext-js-library

I think it would be great if there were either a combined effort with CFE and Aptana... or if Aptana had a CF plugin also.

OK ... I just started reading about AIR today and I don't get it (yet). We've been trying to move away from desktop apps for the longest time, but now we are going back ...? I think the reason why I don't get it is because I don't understand the architecture of an AIR application. Can someone give me the low down? From what I've read, it sounds like AIR is pushing the grunt work of rich internet applications to the desktop and only relying on network bandwidth to the handle the transmission of core data? Is that right also? IF so, what about the original issue with desktop apps? How do we seamlessly upgrade a client app without prompting the user or interrupting the user experience?

THANKS!!

@Lee, an AIR application can interact with the user's system, unlike a web application, so it can access the file system and store data locally for offline access. The auto-update mechanism allows for a number of options.

We've been increasingly pushing applications onto the web and we've been pushing more and more sophisticated user interfaces, trying to make the browser experience as rich as possible. But browsers have a number of limitations that make web applications less than ideal - no offline capability, no local file system access, no local storage, no integration with the operating system (such as system tray and notifications). AIR helps developers take their web skills to the desktop as well as extending the web experience into more convenient interactions.

I strongly recommend you read all the information on labs.adobe.com about AIR and do some research of your own to get on top of the basics.

@Sean, Thanks for your response and suggestion. I'll check it out.

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