Home >
Today Adobe announced the release of the AIR 2.0 beta 2 on Adobe Labs, capping off a successful period of production and demo apps in built in beta 1. Some of the new features include:
Enhanced Printer Interaction: New printing support allows for much more control over how AIR applications print including allowing the user to choose which printer to print to, the paper size of the print out, and the number of copies. Some new API's allow developers to skip the print dialog completely if desired, retrieve information on the printable area of the page, whether the printer can print in color, and whether a job is currently active.
Support for TLS/SSL socket communication: You can now connect to a server that requires TLSv1 or SSLv3 for socket communications.
IME API and IME Text Input Enhancement: There are several new features added in this release to support better text input handling with IME software. The new API enhancements are designed to use with the new Flash Text Engine (FTE). There are several new features added in this release to support better text input handling with IME software. The new API enhancements are designed to use with the new Flash Text Engine (FTE).
It's good to see Adobe bringing more of the power they have over text and print drivers into AIR. While these features might not be something you'll need on a daily basis, they provide a lot of specific power to an already powerful platform.
It's important to note that applications built in beta 1 will not run by default in beta 2. In order for an AIR 2 Beta 1 application to run on the AIR 2 Beta 2 runtime, the namespace of the Beta 1 application descriptor file must first be updated to "2.0beta2" and compiled against the AIR 2 Beta 2 SDK.
Adobe's actively requesting feedback from developers on beta 2 through the AIR 2 bug / feedback submission page. Hit it up with any problems you find or suggested enhancements.
Tag Cloud
Podcasts & Screencasts
@InsideRIA on Twitter
Follow InsideRIA on Twitter
Facebook Application Development
What remains to be seen is whether AIR 2 will also be a total dog when it comes to performance (my suspicion: worse).
I've stopped running AIR apps like Tweetdeck on my laptop because they slow the entire machine down so much.
Early feedback I've seen says the performance enhancements are pretty huge. Most people report much lower mem and CPU usage.
I'm working in Flash CS5 with my project set to AIR 2. When I try to publish it throws me a 1119: Access of possibly undefined property printers...
I am using the "PrintJob.printers" function but it doesn't appear to be included in this version. I tried changing the namespace in the application descriptor file to use "2.0beta2" but that didn't work. Is there something I need to add to my actionscript library path?
Thanks!
B.