Adobe AIR Launchpad - WOW!!!

So it seems that while I was sitting in the hospital, my colleagues were designing and delivering one of the coolest things I have ever seen. The Adobe AIR Launchpad kick starts any RIA project by allowing you to import a pre-built project with the major functionality groups you need. The URL is http://labs.adobe.com/downloads/airlaunchpad.html ( you are going to want to download this as soon as you finish reading this blog). According to the labs website:

"Adobe AIR Launchpad is a new desktop tool that helps Adobe Flex® developers get started building desktop applications deployed on Adobe AIR. Simply run Adobe AIR Launchpad and select the capabilities you need; Adobe AIR Launchpad will create a ready-to-import Flex project with your selected features implemented in a way that can be easily modified and extended. You can use the resulting project as a starting point for your AIR application."

I decided to try it out. Since I have been sick my imagination seems to lack a bit so I just picked a random set of things for the application. You can drag and drop icons and select the application descriptor file settings from the main GUI as shown below:


From the next wizard menu you can select items like global error handling, detection of idle time or network capabilities etc.

and finally, the ability to select some standard types of things many developers would use.



and generate your project!


I imported and opened up the resulting project and found all the generated code and assets neatly placed into the same directory structure I would have used. Very cool!

I did have one small red X in the project which was thrown as the compiler did not recognize "e:UncaughtErrorEvent".

It turns out I failed to read the instructions (seems to be a major pattern in my life) that clearly instructed me to use the Flex SDK 4.1. I just wanted to post this here in case anyone else, like myself, believes reading the manuals are only a last resort. I can hear my teachers back in school now:

Duane. You must read this great novel about a Spanish guy named 'Manual'.


From Technoracle, Adobe AIR Launchpad scores a solid 9/10 for the first release, largely due to the fact it saves lazy developers like me a lot of work!