scott fegette » air

Configuring Dreamweaver CS3 for AIR Coding

Scott — Mon, 20 Aug 2007 23:09:58 +0000

If you’re using Dreamweaver CS3 but hesitant to get started with AIR development, I put together a very quick one-off screencast showing how to configure DWCS3 for AIR previewing and deployment using the beta AIR Extension for Dreamweaver (available on Adobe Labs).

This screencast covers installation and general functionality of the extension, and should get you up and running quickly. From there, it should be a snap to start leveraging your existing XHTML/JS/Spry/CSS skills to write sweet desktop apps using the AIR runtime.
Enjoy!

Desktop RSS with AIR and Spry

Scott — Tue, 14 Aug 2007 16:51:04 +0000

Notorious Aussie rebel Andrew Muller has written up a great article on building an AIR RSS viewer using Adobe’s Spry framework for the plumbing. Although he’s using Aptana in the article, Dreamweaver users have it just as easy (if not a bit easier) following the same steps, as obviously Spry’s much more integrated with DW CS3 than any other dev tool at the moment. You just need to grab the Adobe AIR extension for Dreamweaver CS3, which you can pick up for free (in beta form) at Adobe Labs.

Minor modifications to use Andrew’s article with DW CS3:

Install the AIR Extension for DW CS3 via the Extension Manager.
I suggest creating a unique site definition for each AIR app, to help keep assets managed well
Build the RSS application in Spry using either Andrew’s explicit instructions in code, or supplement that workflow with the visual Spry tools in Dreamweaver for a richer coding/GUI experience
Preview the application using Dreamweaver’s “Preview in Browser” toolbar menu > “Preview in Adobe AIR”
Package the application using the “Package in Adobe AIR” command from Dreamweaver’s Site menu.

Simple, quick and easy! And great little article to get your feet wet with AIR and Spry. Make sure to give Andrew some props if you like the walkthrough.

Twitter/AIR Tastiness

Scott — Tue, 07 Aug 2007 00:01:52 +0000

Twitter’s popular these days, that’s for sure. I’m hooked, at least – and have been for over a year now. And although there’s many very cool third-party clients you can use to consume your tweets, two recently came to my attention that use Adobe technology to deliver your regular tweet fix – TwitterAIR and Spaz.AIR.

First, Aaron West’s sweet TwitterAIR app gets the strong nod-and-wink for being the first AIR Twitter app I’d seen (and damn nicely done, too). Respect.

Secondly – but not least – Spaz.AIR uses both the AIR runtime as well as the free Spry framework from Adobe (along with some JQuery) to do it’s magic. A double shot of Adobe technology in that little package, that’s cool in and of itself.

Now to be perfectly honest- I primarily use the Iconfactory’s Twitteriffic as it both integrates with my menu bar well, and Growl for system notification (mainly, I’ve been using it for so long it’s just become part of my workflow), but were I to rethink it all – which I might – either Spaz or TwitterAIR would be my successors of choice. Boo ya!