We'd like to have an app autorun when our clients put in our info CD.
Is it possible to do this using Adobe AIR... We were thinking of using the Flash Projector cause it compiles to an .exe which is easily launched, but there's no way to get rid of the ugly window chrome is there?
AIR Apps have to be installed right?
Thanks
It isn't going to work with AIR, but there are numerous Flash projectors that would work. AIR needs the runtime and has to be installed.
I had the same requirements and ended up using zinc. You can't get an AIR app to launch without installing it (much assuming that the user has the runtime in the first place) but zinc allows you to do so AND deploy to multiple environments like AIR with custom chrome if need be...Good Luck!
You can't do it with AIR. In fact that was one of the key design points of AIR, that you couldn't do automatic execution.
You can theoretically do it with a .EXE projector file, but it requires some fancy footwork, and I don't think you can output Flex to Projector.
Related
please bear in mind I am not a GUI programmer.
As the title says but to give a little more details:
I have a very large C++ application which I would like to upgrade the GUI for. There is an SDK that we can attach a new GUI onto and I would like to make it look as modern and fancy as possible, I have been advised to use HTML5 for this.
We build and link the project using in house bat files which I have hooked into MSDEV to save me going back to the console every time I want to build the project. I also use MSDEV to attach to the programs when they are running to debug.
Can I also do this in QT?
(I cannot download it and try as I need to have a business case for downloading new software and investigation is a hard one to get approved).
If I did this in QT, could I then use Webkit to create a HTML 5 front end or is there more work required?
What Does Qt Look Like
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bVQ0S-b5lDs
The demo program that comes with the Qt SDK shows off quite a bit of what you can do with the GUI programming. You can build almost anything you can imagine!
It looks native to the operating system it is running on, Windows 7, Mac OSX, Ubuntu, etc.
I believe most of the Linux KDE GUI is now done through Qt.
Running Console Applications
If you need to run things from the console, you can manage that in C++ pretty easily.
system("run_this.bat");
In Qt, if you don't need to see the console window, you can run most things as a QProcess.
There are ways to hook the stderr and see what is going on as well.
HTML 5
Something written in HTML 5 shows up in a browser, and there are a number of slick graphics and effects that can be used with it, but using the QtWebKit, will only ensure that the webpage you are rendering looks the same on every computer you run it on. Most modern browsers are becoming HTML 5 compliant, so relying on the HTML 5 out of Qt shouldn't be necessary.
W3Schools gives a pretty good introduction into what HTML 5 adds to websites:
http://www.w3schools.com/html/html5_intro.asp
Using HTML 5 or C++
Writing a web application that uses HTML 5 versus writing a Desktop application that uses a native GUI are two very different things.
Running files on a local machine is pretty sandboxed when going through a browser with HTML 5. If you are okay with running something remotely on your own server, then it shouldn't be too bad.
I know it is possible to run an Adobe Flex compiled .swf from the command-line using the adl command-line tool.
Is there an equivalent way to run a Flex .swf from the command-line using the system installed AIR runtime?
My question applies to OS X, but I'd interested to know about other platforms also.
UPDATE: This question is now somewhat obsolete. As of AIR 3, there is now an 'officially supported' way to bundle the AIR runtime with an application, using the 'captive runtime' deployment option.
I just tested to run an AIR app without the need to install the application.
Copy the following folders from your Flex SDK
bin
runtimes\air
as well as all files from your "release" (bin-debug) folder of your project.(Don't build a release build!).
now you can run the application with "adl app.xml".
Though there was AIR runtime installed on the PC I think it should be possible without it too.
The original question was a bit different though, maybe it's helpful anyway.
I say No! A SWF is not the same as an AIR application. If you take that SWF's code and compile it into an AIR application; then you should be able to install and run it independent of the browser or any development tools.
I suppose in theory you could create an AIR application where you give it the location of a SWF and use SWFLoader to load the actual SWF. I don't think that is quite what you're after.
There is a stand alone Flash Player which is different from AIR and different from the browser plugin. You can get it here. You can use that to run the SWF as if it were a local app. I wouldn't count on your users having that, though.
You can also load a local SWF in the browser and let the flash player plugin handle it.
Hi I have an application in flash, I build in ActionScript 3.0 Flash IDE, my application loads some external swfs which mentioned via XML file. Its working fine at the moment. But I need to compile all these external SWFs and xml file into single exe file. How can I compile like this. or how can I code like this?
EDIT: 1
from here : http://page-flip.com/products/pdf-publisher/
You can see an example, the application is build in .net and it import pdf and publish it as flash projector or web based(swf). How is it compiling all the external SWF files.
If you have Flash CS4 you can make use of the mxmlc compiler which has some additional tricks up it's sleeve.
Using the embed tag like this will allow you to embed an entire swf "inside" your swf:
[Embed(source = '../assets/items/9.swf')] public static const ITEM_9:Class;
Then, to instantiate it you simply go:
var mySprite:Sprite = new ITEM_9() as Sprite;
Using this and some clever overloading of your current classes for external loading should allow you to get a single swf (xml files can be embedded in a similar fashion).
Then it's just a matter of using the Publish settings to make Flash spit out an .exe
On an unrelated note, please go back and accept some answers to your questions. It's not very nice not to.
You can try mdm Zinc.
Zinc is really powerful. It lets you package your Flash or Flex in different ways, with lots of native platform hooks.
you can build an AIR application. if you don`t want it to be cross platform, you can build an AIR application with a windows native installer.
Flash > File > Project settings > Windows Projector.
For MAC, choose a MAC projector.
If you are burning to a disc and you need both platforms to work...a good option is to use Toast (if you are on a MAC)...it will hide the files you don't need the user to see, and also hide windows files from MACs and vice versa.
There is an application for Windows called SWFKit, which allows you to package your SWF and external files into one exe file. I had the same problem as you, and this worked a treat for me. Unfortunately you do need to pay for it :( http://www.swfkit.com
Hope this helps,
Will
I would go about it with these steps
create a flex application
embed all of the SWF's and the XML into that application
create a release of the application you just created
open the SWF application with the stand-alone flash player and not with the browser
from the file menu select the option create projector
All of this will result a single EXE file that contains all of the SWF's and the XML file.
You can use a projector or make an windows only AIR project.
Use flajector and forget about your problems
In adobe air, is there anyway to get OS open a file, in their native applications?
What about in Flex 4?
In AIR 1.5 there isn't any way to do it. But stay tuned ;)
=Ryan
ryan#adobe.com
You might want to checkout StackOverflow Question 265265 - Can Adobe AIR applications execute processes on the local client machine?
You may be able to use something like this:
var file:File = File.desktopDirectory.resolvePath('Yodl_RBI.ppt.zip');
navigateToURL(new URLRequest(file.url));
It will normally open the asset in a browser window though, but for images and stuff that kind of works.
However if you point it to a folder it will typically open the folder containing the item, which is half way there...
I have .exe file, which is done in VB. i need to open or hit that exe file from Flex3 air application on Button Click event.
i need to simple hit that exe file to run, no need to open inside the air applcation.
How to hit the exe file in Air app...?
Thanks in Advance
Air itself does not provide the ability to launch external applications (I see this as a significant problem with AIR).
Some people have created a hack that would allow you to do this and provided it as a library, though I'm not sure how reliable it is (it does some weird things with the way Windows loads DLLs that I'm not sure I completely trust).
Aperture framework: http://aperture.fluorinefx.com/
Blog discussing the implementation: http://blog.fluorinefx.com/?tag=native
As Herms said, AIR doesn't allow you to do that. However, Java does and you can connect your AIR app with Java using merapi.
For now, the best and easiest way to do this is, as Amarhosh said, to use Merapi. Or you can wait to AIR 2.0 (the end of 2009) which will bring native access support.
AIR 2.0 will support using NativeProcess.