Beginning Adobe AIR: Building Applications for the Adobe Integrated Runtime (Wrox Beginning Guides) [Paperback]

Rich Tretola (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0470229047 | ISBN-13: 978-0470229040 | Publication Date: April 7, 2008 | Edition: 1

If you?re ready to take advantage of Adobe Integrated Runtime (AIR) to build desktop-based Rich Internet Applications, then this is the book for you. After introducing you to AIR, Adobe expert Rich Tretola discusses the different programming languages and tools you can use for development. He presents multiple methods for storing data, including within the file system and embedded database as well as storage on remote servers. This guide is a perfect mix of tutorials and hands-on coding, and provides the resources you need to build AIR applications quickly.

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

Beginning Adobe AIR

Adobe Integrated Runtime (AIR) is revolutionizing the way desktop applications are deployed. If you're ready to take advantage of this platform to build desktop-based Rich Internet Applications, then this is the book for you. It presents a step-by-step process, walking you through the features of AIR so you can quickly get started.

After introducing you to AIR, Adobe expert Rich Tretola discusses the different programming languages and tools you can use for development. He then presents multiple methods for storing data, including within the file system and embedded database as well as storage on remote servers. You'll also learn about the numerous features that allow AIR applications to interact with both Mac OS X and Windows.

This guide offers a perfect mix of tutorials and hands-on coding, and provides the resources you need to build AIR applications quickly. And it provides the resources that will help you build your first killer Rich Desktop Application.

What you will learn from this book

• All about the programming languages available for AIR development

• How to work with the various tools for building AIR applications

• Steps for getting data into AIR applications from XML, ColdFusion®, JSON, and Web Services

• Ways to take advantage of the HTML and File System components

• Strategies for utilizing AIR APIs that handle interactions with the operating system

• How to move a Flex application to the desktop

Who this book is for
This book is for developers who are currently leveraging web technologies, such as Flash, Flex, HTML, JavaScript and Ajax techniques to build and deploy Rich Internet Applications.

Wrox Beginning guides are crafted to make learning programming languages and technologies easier than you think, providing a structured, tutorial format that will guide you through all the techniques involved.

About the Author

Rich Tretola is the Rich Applications Technical Lead at Herff Jones, Inc. He is an award-winning Flex developer and was the lead author of Professional Flex 2 (ISBN 978-0-470-10267-1) from Wrox. He entered the field of Web development in the late 1990s and has been building applications ever since.
Other than Flex, he builds applications using ColdFusion, Flash, and Java (where he is a Sun-certified programmer). Rich is highly regarded within the Flex community as an expert in RIA and is also an Adobe Community Expert. He runs a popular Flex and AIR blog at http://blog.everythingFlex.com, and is the community manager for http://www.InsideRIA.com.

Product Details

• Paperback: 319 pages
• Publisher: Wrox; 1 edition (April 7, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0470229047
• ISBN-13: 978-0470229040
• Product Dimensions: 7.4 x 0.8 x 9.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 2.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,412,451 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Well done, but could be longer., April 30, 2008

By 

Alan "Alan" (New York, NY) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Beginning Adobe AIR: Building Applications for the Adobe Integrated Runtime (Wrox Beginning Guides) (Paperback)

It's solid. It has a "cookbook" feel to it, which I like. What I mean by that is that the book dishes out info in a succinct way and covers pretty much what you'd like to know when building an app. Things like, prepping the xml description file, accessing the local file system, connecting to remote data, interacting with the OS. Good stuff.

I don't like how short it is, about 300 pages. The text is big, has lots of pictures (this is good but it inflates the page count), and a few tables that I thought were unnecessary.

If you are competent in Actionscript, but don't know much about AIR, this is great. I'm an advanced ActionScripter, so this book really just fills in a few holes I had about AIR, and will serve as a good reference when I need to be reminded how to say, move a directory on the users computer or how to set the window chrome of an application.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Quite disappointing, July 25, 2008

By 

Lloyd Northgate - See all my reviews

This review is from: Beginning Adobe AIR: Building Applications for the Adobe Integrated Runtime (Wrox Beginning Guides) (Paperback)

You're wandering through the desert for hours on end when someone appears wanting to to sell you a cold bottle of beer. You're thirsty and would pay just about anything. You pay the price and then discover it isn't cold and it isn't beer and it doesn't quench your thirst. You've been had. Buy Beginning Adobe AIR and you may feel like this.

I bought a copy here on Amazon. There are just not many books on AIR just yet, so I thought I'd give it a try. This one was obviously rushed to press. The publisher and editor should be embarrassed by their lack of oversight. This greatly diminishes WROX standards of quality. There are many places where the author copied and pasted whole sections, changing a key word here but forgetting to make a change there. Really stupid and unprofessional. What is presented in so many chapters and through repetition could be concisely written in just a few chapters.

But is the information ultimately useful? Well, maybe to a few readers. In my opinion a few hours spent working through some of the sample applications on the AIR website might serve you far better than this title. Also, keep a watch for other titles that will surely appear on this exciting technology. I just can't recommend this volume ... unless you are really, really thirsty.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Poor and bloated with repetitive and unnecessary screen captures, February 4, 2009

By 

Gorka Lz Torre Querejazu "Gorka" (Alava, Spain) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Beginning Adobe AIR: Building Applications for the Adobe Integrated Runtime (Wrox Beginning Guides) (Paperback)

If you are thinking about buying this book, better save your money for something better and read some tutorials online. The book is absolutely bloated with repetitive and unnecessary screen captures, poorly written and lacks any true content. In overall is not even worth the trees that died for it. Bad, bad, bad.