This is our first beta so we'd appreciate your feedback, particularly in these areas:

• What do you think of the new structure of the reference? Please compare the experience of accessing all of the products and runtimes in one spot against the experience of using the separate product-specific language references we have published to date.


• Is the content filtering feature useful? Content filtering lets you see only the products, runtimes, and versions you are interested in.

You can send us your feedback by using the feedback link in the version pod (top right popup in the reference).

Thanks

The Adobe Flash Platform Documentation teams

You can read more about the new application in Ed Sullivan's Logged In article on the Adobe Developer Connection.

var students:Array = ["John", "Rachel", "Melissa", "Calvin"];
var index:Array = students.sort(Array.RETURNINDEXEDARRAY);
for(var i:int = 0; i < students.length; i++) {
 trace(students[index[i]] + ": student index: " 
   + index[i] + " sorted: " + i);
}

The example uses a for() loop to step through the returned index array in order, using the variable i, initialized to 0. The trace() statement displays the following information: the student's name (students[index[i]]); the position of that student in the original array (the value of index[i]); the sorted position of the student, which is the sequence of index, or the value of i. The output looks like this:

Calvin: student index: 3 sorted: 0
John: student index: 0 sorted: 1
Melissa: student index: 2 sorted: 2
Rachel: student index: 1 sorted: 3

And the order of the students array remains unchanged: John, Rachel, Melissa, Calvin.

You can obtain additional sequences by using the OR operator| to combine
RETURNINDEXEDARRAY with other sort() constants. For example, the call to students.sort() in the following code combines RETURNINDEXEDARRAY with the constant DESCENDING, to access students in descending order:

var students:Array = ["John", "Rachel", "Melissa", "Calvin"];
var index:Array = students.sort(Array.RETURNINDEXEDARRAY | Array.DESCENDING);
for(var i:int = 0; i < students.length; i++) {
 trace(students[index[i]] + ": student index: " 
   + index[i] + " sorted: " + i);
}

The output for this version looks like this:

Rachel: student index: 1 sorted: 0
Melissa: student index: 2 sorted: 1
John: student index: 0 sorted: 2
Calvin: student index: 3 sorted: 3

For more information on the Array class, see:
http://help.adobe.com/en_US/AS3LCR/Flash_10.0/Array.html

Adobe wants you to publicize your content and showcase your knowledge about developing Adobe AIR applications.

The Adobe Community Help features let you publish comments to the online Adobe documentation. This is a great place to show off your AIR knowledge and link to your own informative content. In doing so, you help other developers, help improve the usefulness of our documentation, and bring more people to your valuable content.

You can log in to one of the Community Help pages and add comments, expanding on the content in any topic. Or from any relevant page (or pages), you can add links to your article or blog that provides more detail.

Here are links to some of the AIR documentation where you can share your knowledge....

For Flex developers:

• Developing Adobe AIR 1.5 Applications with Adobe Flex


• Adobe Flex Language Reference


• Quick Start example articles

For Flash developers:

• Developing Adobe AIR 1.5 Applications with Adobe Flash CS4 Professional


• Flash CS4 Professional ActionScript 3.0 Language Reference


• Quick Start example articles

For HTML developers:

• Developing Adobe AIR 1.5 Applications with HTML and Ajax


• Adobe AIR Language Reference for HTML Developers


• Quick Start example articles

Also, this page lists other ways that you can contribute to Adobe Community Help: Community Help contributions.

We look forward to seeing your great posts.

Yes, I've created an AIR app that uses local files

Yes, I've created an AIR app that uses a database

Thanks!

We're exploring two areas of Flex and AIR application development:

• Building AIR applications with Flex that use local files
• Building AIR applications with Flex that use a database

Here's the participant criteria for each:

Building AIR applications with Flex that use local files

• Flex and ActionScript experience
• New to Adobe AIR (you haven't built an AIR application) or familiar with AIR but haven't built an AIR application using local files

Building AIR applications with Flex that use a database

• Flex and ActionScript experience
• Experience writing SQL and building an application that uses a database (e.g. a PHP, J2EE, or ASP.NET application that uses a database)
• New to Adobe AIR (you haven't built an AIR application) or familiar with AIR but haven't built an AIR application using a database

If you meet these requirements and would like to participate, please send an email to...

UPDATE 7/21/09- Thanks. We got a fantastic response to this request. Those selected are being contacted this week. We'll be doing a second round of testing next quarter and we'll contact those not selected for the first round. Thanks for the support!

The Adobe Flash Platform Documentation team

The API reference is availabe as part of the Flex Gumbo API Documentation, which accepts comments. Look for the flashx.textLayout.* packages

We'd love to get any feedback you might have.

If you'd like to see what people are doing with the TextLayout Framework, check out the New York Times Reader 2.0 application, which is built with Adobe AIR.

Adobe ships occasional update versions of Adobe AIR. And Adobe AIR applications can take advantage of new features and bug fixes in new versions of the runtime.

Also, new versions of Adobe AIR may include updated versions of WebKit (the HTML rendering engine in AIR). This may change the behavior or appearance of HTML content in an AIR application. For example, improvements or corrections in WebKit may change the layout of HTML elements in an AIR application’s user interface.

It is important to provide an update mechanism in your application. When you update your application, the application can inform the user of the new update version. Should you need to update your application due to a change in the WebKit version included in AIR, the update mechanism will let your users know about the new version of your application.

AIR includes a update framework, which simplifies the task of managing update versions and adding appropriate user interface in your AIR application.

For more information, see “Updating AIR applications” in the AIR developer's guides:

• For Ajax developers -- http://www.adobe.com/go/learn_air_html_en
• For Flash developers -- http://www.adobe.com/go/learn_air_flash_en
• For Flex developers -- http://www.adobe.com/go/learn_air_flex3_en

Also, these "Quick Start" sample applications show how to use the update framework:

• For Ajax developers -- http://www.adobe.com/devnet/air/ajax/quickstart/update_framework.html
• For Flash developers -- http://www.adobe.com/devnet/air/flash/quickstart/update_framework.html
• For Flex developers -- http://www.adobe.com/devnet/air/flex/quickstart/update_framework.html

import fl.controls.List;
import fl.data.DataProvider;

var dp:DataProvider = new DataProvider();
dp.addItem({label:"AL", data:"Montgomery"});
dp.addItem({label:"AK", data:"Juneau"});
dp.addItem({label:"AR", data:"Little Rock"});
// assign the data provider to the list
var myList:List = new List();
myList.dataProvider = dp;
myList.rowHeight = 35;
myList.rowCount = dp.length;
myList.move(10, 10);
addChild(myList);	// display the list
// this attempt to locate an item in the list returns -1
trace("Index is: " + myList.dataProvider.getItemIndex({label:"AK", data:"Juneau"}));

Paul Robertson explains:

The problem is that the getItemIndex() method matches exact object references, not objects with matching properties. The first object, {label:”AK”, data”Juneau”}, may have identical property values with the one that’s being passed to the getItemIndex() method, but they’re not exactly the same object – they’re just two different objects that happen to have the same property values.

To get a match with getItemIndex(), you need to pass a reference to the actual object that’s in the data provider. To do that, of course, you need a reference to the same object, for example in a variable. Here’s a variation of your code that works:

import fl.controls.List;
import fl.data.DataProvider;

var dp:DataProvider = new DataProvider();
var item1:Object = {label:"AL", data:"Montgomery"};
var item2:Object = {label:"AK", data:"Juneau"};
var item3:Object = {label:"AR", data:"Little Rock"};
dp.addItem(item1);
dp.addItem(item2);
dp.addItem(item3);

var myList:List = new List();
myList.dataProvider = dp;
myList.rowHeight = 35;
myList.rowCount = dp.length;
myList.move(10, 10);
addChild(myList);

trace("Index is: " + myList.dataProvider.getItemIndex(item2));

Of course, you are probably really trying to do some sort of search to find the index of an item that matches a user entered string. The only way I can see to do that is to loop over the data provider one item at a time and compare the property values. You can either loop over the data provider directly using dp.length and dp.getItemAt(index), or else keep the objects in a separate array. This code demonstrates the first approach:

import fl.controls.List;
import fl.controls.Button;
import fl.controls.TextInput;
import fl.data.DataProvider;

var dp:DataProvider = new DataProvider();
dp.addItem({label:"AL", data:"Montgomery"});
dp.addItem({label:"AK", data:"Juneau"});
dp.addItem({label:"AR", data:"Little Rock"});

var myList:List = new List();
myList.dataProvider = dp;
myList.rowHeight = 35;
myList.rowCount = dp.length;
myList.move(10, 35);
addChild(myList);

var ti:TextInput = new TextInput();
ti.width = 100;
ti.move(10, 10);
addChild(ti);

var btn:Button = new Button();
btn.width = 50;
btn.label = "Search";
btn.move(120, 10);
addChild(btn);
btn.addEventListener(MouseEvent.CLICK, btn_click);

function btn_click(event:Event):void
{
    for (var i:int = 0, len:int = dp.length; i < len; i++)
    {
        if (dp.getItemAt(i).data == ti.text)
       {
           trace("Index is: " + i.toString());
           return;
       }
    }
    trace("Item not found");
}

New event that indicates if the application was launched manually by the user or automatically at login

The InvokeEventReason class (in the flash.desktop package) defines the two possible string values for the InvokeEvent.reason property. InvokeEventReason.LOGIN defines the login case; InvokeEventReason.STANDARD defines the standard case.

Jeff Swartz wrote a new quick start to explain how to use this new functionality.

• For Flex developers: AIR application start-up options
• For Ajax developers: AIR application start-up options

New property to return processor architecture

This new property (Capabilities.cpuArchitecture in flash.system) returns the processor architecture of the machine, as a string (such as "PowerPC" or "x86").

Using these new APIs

If you want to take advantage of these new AIR 1.5.1 APIs, update your application descriptor to use the 1.5.1 namespace:

xmlns="http://ns.adobe.com/air/application/1.5.1"

If you do not need to use these new APIs, you do not need to update your application descriptor. Your application will be able to run with AIR 1.5.1 when the user updates the version of the runtime installed on their system.

You can find all the current AIR docs here: Adobe AIR resources

http://www.mikechambers.com/blog/2009/01/26/actionscript-3-reference-for-iphone/