Last month I created a quick desktop app with Adobe AIR and Sencha (formerly known as Extjs) connecting to the people connections rest service.

Since then I have tidied up the code and have been playing with the idea of testing it out on the iPhone, Android & Blackberry device.
You`r probably asking how do convert it to work on these devices?

Well simple - First.. I don`t really need to use AIR - as the application is written in html & javascript and should work as long as I upload the code directly onto the server with Webcenter otherwise I have to put in a cross domain proxy hack.  All you need is a browser.

But.. I want to package it as an application as there are features in AIR that I may want that are not available  in the mobile browser. So how do I do this?

iPhone - iPad::

Well luckily for me there is an Adobe Air iPhone packager that will convert my air app to a native iphone 3.0 app.
Unfortunately Apple and Adobe have been having a little war preventing me from putting it onto Apples appstore and Adobe have stopped development on the packager

Here is a small add of Adobe fighting back::

But wait.. Someone has already created a great free iphone app available at the store!!

If you wanted though you could create something different - branded and supported by all smart-phones just use the packager and make the app

Android::

Adobe also provide a AIR-APK packager for android devices - At the moment the packager is in Beta I haven`t had the time to test it out yet but hoping to get something done this week and try it out on my HTC Desire.

Blackberry::

Finally the Blackberry; I couldn’t find much info or support on the device - it looks like there are plans for an AIR packager but at the moment nothing has been released.
Adobe have been working closely with Google on the open screen project and with RIM . There are plans so fingers crossed by the end of this year there will be something.. For the time being I’m going to upgrade the blackberry browser and see the potential of using  Sencha Touch to improve the UI through a browser.

Here’s a quick demo of the cleaned up Connections app working on my VM.

So I had a quick play around this evening but didn’t have much success with converting a small html app to an ipa .. So far it is looking as if the packager only supports flash.. .. .. Not good still researching.. Will update this post when I find out more..

Ok; so after spending the whole weekend pulling out my hair working with both the iPhone package and Android Packager researching and finding very little on html, javascript support. Adobe have come back to me Woohoo!! There is a new method called StageWebView in 2.5 that should allow me to do what I want

Working with webcenter and sharepoint

Just kidding its not all that bad

Via Programmer’s life (cartoon)

Ok, so here it is my Chromeless Adobe AIR App Demo!

I wish I had more connections setup at the time of the demo.. But going on holiday tomorrow so little time to add connections and make a proper presentation..

But you can see the Sencha JS framework in action pulling the webcenter data from the REST API…

ok, you can`t see the app pulling the data but trust me its connecting authenticating and working!
User Credentials are hardcoded in the app -  future update will have login ability and ability to specify which webcenter server you want to connect to

So recently I didn’t have much luck convincing the Oracle AppsLab Team to start creating Adobe AIR desktop applications for Webcenter Spaces The good news is however they are creating browser extensions which are just as good and not only for 1 browser. It looks like they have been working on Chrome, Safari and firefox!

I`m not sure if I can make OOW this year.. 50/50 I`ll be going but if any of you do go. Go check out the AppsLab team booth and see what great things they have been doing..

So your probably all going I don’t know flex, AIR is rubbish what’s the point its all flash. Flash is probably going to die in 4 years time or so unless they make something cool there is no point in looking at AIR.

Well I would agree on the above points.. But wait.. AIR supports CSS3 and HTML 5 using the Webkit engine and you don`t need to know any flash flex you can simply use html javascript. AIR works cross platform - smartphones, smartbooks, tablets, netbooks, and PCs - on Windows, Mac, Linux you just need the air engine running.  It also has other benefits  - The javascript engine is 50% faster! There is mass storage detection to synchronise your files like photos, mp3s etc - Support for local DB environment upto 1 TB on mySQLLite or you could use HTML5 offline storage!

So this weekend I set the challenge to go ahead and create my first AIR application for WebCenter connecting via ajax to the REST services.

It took me all weekend but it’s done!

So what monster did I create? Mwuhahahahahahaha!!

Well it’s nothing special  - I connected to the REST People Connections API to bring back all the user details I`m connected with. And to display the data I used the Sencha JS Framework formerly known as EXT JS. This allowed me to order display and find connections quickly. View Quick Demo …

I`m really excited with whats happening with Sencha - they have joined forces with JQTouch expanding EXTs potential on touch devices; iphone, android, ipad you name it!! It all looking so good.. There just isn’t enough time to keep up with technology..

It’s that wonderful time of the year where I get to go out - chill, relax and forget about the fun world of work.
This time I`ll be spending 3 glorious weeks relaxing on my own, by lake Bled in Slovenia.

So, if any one happens to be in the neighborhood and wants to go for a drink go party ping me a message