What is the ActionScript 3 RIA API Guide?

This ActionScript reference for rich Internet application development provides an alphabetical reference for all native ActionScript APIs for the Adobe Flash platform runtimes: Adobe Flash Player and Adobe AIR-as well as the Adobe Flex framework APIs.  The RIA guide has been recently updated to include the API changes effected by Adobe AIR 1.5, Flex 3.2 and Flash Player 10.

Additional Resources:

• Download the guide
• ActionScript 3 Language Reference
• Adobe AIR documentation

Mike Chambers reports that the beloved open source Growl notification framework will be able to be leveraged by Adobe AIR applications.  If you are unfamiliar with Growl, Growl is a notification system for Mac OS X that allows applications that support Growl to send you notifications.

What is As3Growl?

As3Growl is the project behind this integration and provides an API for working with the new Growl functionality.  The project is hosted at Google code and already contains the complete API source, API docs, examples, documentation, unit tests and other information.

This is an exciting project and will only improve the user's experience within Adobe AIR applications.  Thanks to Mike Chambers and all involved.

Additional Resources:

• Visit As3Growl's project page
• Learn more about Growl
• Download As3Growl

The JW Desktop Player uses the Adobe AIR Framework to playback FLV, MP3 and MP4 files on your MAC or PC.  JW Desktop Player allows you to playback a video by simply dropping it on top of the display.

Also, if you are curious as to what is under the hood of this Adobe AIR Application, source code is available for your eyes to see.

Additional Resources:

• Download and install JW Desktop Player
• Download the full source code

With the online application market rapidly expanding, more and more rich interactive applications are being born to fit the needs of its users.  In particular, recreation of desktop applications such as Microsoft Word and Microsoft Excel have struck many creators attention. SlideRocket joins a handful of companies like Google, Zoho, and Empressr as they plan to redefine the online presentation experience.  

What is SlideRocket?

SlideRocket is a Flash-based approach to presentations online. It's the only presentation software that allows you to create stunning presentations, manage them intelligently, share them securely and then measure the results. SlideRocket also includes an online marketplace where you can find all the content and services you might need to make your presentations great.  

Features to be expected of SlideRocket:

• Import your PowerPoint presentations
• Available as a Adobe AIR application
• Easily share presentations
• Work together with other individuals
• Integrate dynamic data
• Many, many more!

Example SlideRocket Presentations:

SlideRocket Presentation: The SlideRocket Product Tour

Additional Resources:

With all the wonderful Adobe AIR Applications available to the community, a good percentage of those lack the use of handy little install badges.  Install badges allow you to create a seamless installation process that installs the needed components for your AIR applications.   Many will say that creating one of these badge was tedious and time consuming.  To answer those cries Grant Skinner and Adobe teamed up to create an Adobe AIR Application called Badger.

What is Badger?

Badger allows you to load a template install badge, configure all of its options, preview it live.   It also takes the pain out of configuring badges by tracking down your application ID, publisher ID, version, and other information.

Badger includes the following features:

• Rapid configuration: Simply open the AIR file within the Badger application to retrieve information required for the install badge.
• Visual configuration: Preview the badge and make any necessary changes.
• Simple cut-and-paste deployment: Export and cut and paste the code to your web page.

Examples of an Install Badge:

Additional Resources:

• Download Badger
• Preview Badger (screenshot)

Now that Flash on the Beach has come and gone, I am sure many of you are wondering what topics were discussed and how it went overall.  If your one of the few that hasn't heard of Flash on the Beach, 
it has brought together the most creative, technical, inspirational awe-inspiring, educational and entertaining industry leading speakers in the rich media industry.   This year was no different.  

Lee Brimelow and Jen Brynildsen, both recap their experiences at this year's Flash on the Beach.  Be sure to take a look at both articles, as they both give you great insights to what happened at FOTB.

Additonal Resources: 

• Flash on the Beach Slides by Flashcomguru 
• Flash on the Beach Keynote

With the Flash on the Beach conference wrapping up at Brighton, UK, Peter Elst just posted a video on the keynote held at this year's conference.  This year's keynote is given by Richard Galvan,Serge Jespers and Mark Doherty as they took the stage to talk about Flash CS4, AIR and Flash Lite.  Enjoy!

Everyone put your hands together for the Away3D team for putting together this great demo that demonstrates the latest and greatest capabilities that Away3D has to offer.  This amazing piece of 3D animation is the cause of the release of Away3D 2.2.  Almost everything you see along your journey in this 780 kb all in demo is code generated.  

Some of the new features in Away3D 2.2 include:

• Collada bones support and improved features
• Triangle caching
• Bounding box and bounding sphere calculations
• PathExtrude, PathAnimator and PathDuplicator
• Simple shadows
• Object based renderers
• Obj Exporter
• ElevationModifier
• Elevation2AS3

Additional Resources:

The Adobe AIR Bible promises to be a well rounded book on the topic of developing AIR using Flash, Flex, and JavaScript. 

Product Description

Adobe AIR is a revolutionary technology that blurs the line between the desktop and the web. The AIR Bible will get developers up and running building simple AIR application, then take them through all aspects of the new API. The authors have a wealth of experience in building Rich Internet Applications using Flex, Flash, HTML, and Ajax. They will bring their experience to the table walking the reader through application programming topics and demystifying the techniques developers use to build the kind of complex application that readers are sure to want to build with this exciting new technology.