June 2007 Archives

The AIR (né Apollo) beta release includes a number of great new features, including:

• Support for PDF
  
• Embedded SQLite
  
• Drag-and-drop
  
• Transparent HTML
  

...and more.

But I want to call attention to one of my favorite features: Install Badges. Yes, I'm biased because I worked on it. But if I didn't work on this stuff, this blog wouldn't be half so interesting, would it?

Install badges are SWFs which you can embed on a web page and which, when activated, trigger the seamless installation of your application. It works whether or not AIR itself is already installed; if it isn't, it'll be installed right along with your application in a single flow.

Want to see it in action? Browse to the AIR Sample Applications page and install away.

Wanted to make your own? Download the AIR SDK, which contains a sample badge in both compiled and source form.

Caveat: Embarrasingly, some debug code was left in the badge as it shipped in the beta SDK. (Well, it is a beta, after all.) So you may want to open the .fla just to remove that, even if you're not interested in further customization.