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Adobe Integrated Runtime, also known as Adobe AIR, is a cross-platform runtime environment developed by Adobe Systems for building Rich Internet Applications (RIA) using Adobe Flash, Adobe Flex, HTML, and Ajax, that can be run as desktop applications or on mobile devices. The runtime supports installable applications on Windows, Linux, Mac OS and some mobile operating systems such as BlackBerry Tablet OS, iOS and Android, or the BBC iPlayer Desktop.

With AIR, Adobe intends to provide a versatile runtime-environment that allows existing Flash, ActionScript, or HTML and JavaScript code to be used to construct Internet-based applications that have many of the characteristics of more traditional desktop-like programs. Adobe positions it as a browser-less runtime for RIAs that can be deployed onto the desktop, rather than as a full-fledged application framework. An application deployed in a browser does not require installation, while one deployed with AIR requires the application be packaged, digitally signed, and installed on the user's local file system. This provides access to local storage and file systems, while browser-deployed applications are more limited in where and how data can be accessed and stored.^[4]

Adobe AIR internally uses Adobe Flash Player as the runtime environment, and ActionScript 3 as the sole programming language. Flash applications must specifically be built for the Adobe AIR runtime in order to utilize additional features provided, such as file system integration, native client extensions, native window/screen integration, taskbar/dock integration, and hardware integration with connected Accelerometer and GPS devices.^[5] AIR enables applications to work with data in multiple different ways, including local files, local SQLite databases for which AIR has inbuilt support, a database server via web services, or the encrypted local store included with AIR.

Availability[link]

The latest version of Adobe AIR, Version 3, contains Adobe Flash Player 11, and is available for Windows (XP and newer) and Mac OS X.^[6] Official support for desktop Linux distributions ceased in June 2011 with version 2.6,^[7] though AIR 3 is supported on select mobile operating systems, Android (ARM Cortex-A8 and above^[8]) and Apple iOS.^[6]

In January 2009, Adobe claimed that there were over 100 million installations of Adobe AIR worldwide, and that "the majority of AIR runtime installations occur at the time the first AIR application is installed by a user".^[9] The large number of installations is actually because Adobe AIR was included with all downloaded installations of Adobe Reader 9 (released in July, 2008), Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Lightroom, with no option for exclusion either in the download or in the installation.^[10] As of August 2010^[update] Adobe still bundles Adobe AIR (along with the application Acrobat.com) with the Adobe Reader 9.3 download, with no option for exclusion, and the installation file for Adobe Reader 9.3 also installs Adobe AIR.

Release history[link]

"Apollo" 1.0 Betas[link]

Adobe made a public preview release of AIR (then called Apollo) along with a software development kit (SDK) and extension for developing Apollo applications with the Flex framework, on March 19, 2007.

On June 10, 2007, Apollo was renamed to AIR and a public beta release of the runtime was launched. Public beta 2 of AIR SDK was released on October 1, 2007. Public beta 3, was released on December 12, 2007.

Adobe AIR 1.0[link]

Version 1.0 of the Adobe AIR runtime and SDK was released on February 25, 2008.^{[citation needed]}

Adobe AIR 1.1[link]

Version 1.1 of Adobe AIR was released on June 16, 2008. This release included a number of new features including:

• Support for additional languages including Chinese Traditional, Chinese Simplified, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Brazilian Portuguese, Russian, and Spanish
• Support for localizing the name, description local database error messages of the application
• A new option that allows an application to be updated from an old certificate to a new one while preserving the identity of the application (for example from a self-signed certificate to a chained certificate)
• A new property for detecting the space available on a drive
• A new property for detecting whether the hosting operating system's window manager supports transparency

In addition, version 1.1 includes support for Microsoft Windows XP Tablet PC Edition and 64-bit editions of Windows Vista Home Premium, Business, Ultimate, and Enterprise.^[11]

Adobe AIR 1.5[link]

Adobe AIR 1.5 was released on November 17, 2008. New capabilities included:

• Support for encrypting the local database
• Inclusion of Flash Player 10 features
• An updated version of WebKit with performance improvements due to a new JavaScript interpreter
• Support for five new languages including Czech, Dutch, Swedish, Turkish and Polish
• A Linux version was released on December 18, 2008.^[12][13]

Adobe AIR 1.5.1[link]

Released on February 24, 2009, AIR 1.5.1 was primarily a compatibility update that includes bug fixes and security updates.

Adobe AIR 1.5.2[link]

Released on July 30, 2009, AIR 1.5.2 introduced a number of minor new features and compatibility issues. Some of important fixes included:

• When using the full-screen interactive mode an application using the 1.5.2 namespace can capture the keyDown event and call the preventDefault() method of the event
• SWF content embedded within an HTML container could now be displayed with certain wmode settings.

Adobe AIR 1.5.3[link]

Adobe AIR 1.5.3 was released on December 8, 2009. It included fixes for a number of compatibility and security related issues. The BBC iPlayer Desktop manager v1.5.15695.18135 is the first version to use AIR 1.5.3.

AIR 2.0[link]

The Adobe AIR 2 public beta was released on November 16, 2009 followed by the beta 2 on February 2, 2010 and the release candidate on May 11, 2010. In addition, Adobe AIR for Android was announced on February 12, 2010. AIR 2 was officially released for Windows, Mac OS and Linux on June 10, 2010 and Android on October 8, 2010. It dropped support for PowerPC Macs.

AIR 2.5[link]

Adobe AIR 2.5 was released on October 24, 2010 at the Adobe MAX 2010 conference.^[14]

AIR 2.6[link]

Adobe AIR 2.6 was released on February 24, 2011 for Android devices.^[15] Another update was released on March 22, 2011 for updated Apple iOS support.^[16]

AIR 2.7[link]

Adobe AIR 2.7 was released on June 14, 2011. ^[17] Linux support was dropped. ^[18]

AIR 3.0[link]

Adobe released Adobe AIR 3.0 on October 3, 2011. ^[19] AIR 3.0 included support for native 64-bit CPU architecture, hardware accelerated graphics rendering, captive runtime, native extensions, JPEG-XR image format, LZMA compression for SWF files, and H.264 encoding.^[20]

AIR 3.1[link]

Adobe released Adobe Air 3.1 on November 11 2011

AIR 3.2[link]

Adobe released Adobe Air 3.2 on March 28 2012

Application development[link]

Adobe AIR supports Flash applications by running them within a contained Flash Player instance, and HTML/JavaScript/Ajax web applications by running them within the included WebKit rendering engine. Multiple instances of the browser can be started within a single AIR application, but JavaScript content executes with some security limitations.

Adobe has provided a free SDK in order to build AIR applications, known as the AIR SDK. The AIR SDK allows developers to use any text editor such as Notepad++ or FlashDevelop (an IDE) to edit ActionScript source code (.as files), and then build a corresponding AIR application or AIR installer (.air file) from the same.

Adobe provides for AIR HTML/JavaScript development with Adobe Dreamweaver CS5, although any other HTML editor or text editor can be used.^[21]

ActionScript[link]

Adobe AIR applications can be built either with the Adobe Flex Framework, or without. The framework is an integrated collection of stylable Graphical User Interface, data manipulation and networking components, and applications built upon it are known as "Flex" applications. Applications built without the framework depend entirely on the developer's own skills and artistic abilities, and are commonly known as "pure ActionScript" projects.

In both methods, developers can access the full Flash Player set of functionalities, including text, vector graphics, bitmap graphics, video, audio, camera and microphone support, among others. Adobe AIR also includes additional features such as file system integration, native extensions, native desktop integration, and hardware integration with connected devices.

Adobe provides two ways of developing AIR applications in ActionScript:

• Adobe Flash Builder (formerly Adobe Flex Builder)
• Adobe Flash CS4 or newer

Third-party development environments that target the AIR runtime are also available:

• FlashDevelop, an open-source Flash ActionScript IDE, which includes a debugger for AIR applications
• FDT by PowerFlasher Solutions, a commercial ActionScript IDE

JavaScript[link]

Adobe AIR supports a subset of JavaScript, which does not support dynamic execution of code when running in the application sandbox. According to Adobe, this restriction is designed to prevent malicious remote content from attacking a user's system.^[22] Due to this restriction, JavaScript frameworks that make use of dynamic JavaScript functions like eval() were not initially compatible with Adobe AIR. However, several frameworks including Dojo Toolkit,^{[citation needed]} jQuery,^{[citation needed]} and ExtJS^{[citation needed]} were updated to support Adobe AIR's application sandbox. Some frameworks like MooTools were already compatible.^{[citation needed]}

Dreamweaver CS4/CS3 requires an additional extension to compile AIR applications,^[23] as does Flash CS3 in the form of an update.^[24] The cross-platform nature of the runtime means any HTML editor, coupled with the AIR SDK, can create AIR applications.

Criticisms[link]

Some developers have complained about certain lacking features on Adobe AIR for Android, such as acoustic echo cancellation^[25], which causes AIR applications to suffer from some echo issues.

References[link]

Further reading[link]

External links[link]

• Official website
  • Adobe AIR Marketplace
  • Adobe AIR Developer Network
  • Adobe AIR Documentation

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