DryerFox - Updated for Flex 3 Beta 3

I made a few minor tweaks to DryerFox a few weeks ago, but I thought I should post them.

1. Updated the code to resolve breaking changes.
   
   The WebKit control was reworked a fair bit for Beta 3. mx.controls.HTML no longer delegates the heavy lifting to flash.html.HTMLControl. So this meant a code sweep to change snippets like:
   
   
   • html.htmlControl.historyBack() becomes html.historyBack().
     
   • html.htmlControl.window.document.title becomes html.domWindow.window.document.title.
     
   • HTMLUncaughtJavascriptExceptionEvent becomes HTMLUncaughtScriptExceptionEvent.
     
     
2. Updated the -app.xml
   
   Another beta, another -app.xml schema.
   
   All the same values are set, but the precise location and names within the XML have changed again. I can see in the SDK that there is a template for these in sdk/templates/air/descriptor-template.xml. I just wish that Flex Builder provided a config panel interface to set this stuff, just like it does for the HTML wrappers.
   
   
3. Updated the badge installer
   
   This beta included another update to the badge installer, so I have included this in the source update.
   
   
4. Added the new EverythingFlexAIR.SWC library
   
   DryerFox was already using Rich Tretola's UpdateManager class, and Rich has now packaged this (and other useful goodies) in a SWC, available here.
   
   
5. Updated SWFObject to v2 RC1
   
   SWFObject has moved to a release candidate, so I updated my copy. No other changes required.
   

Source for the latest DryerFox can be found here. App can be installed via the "Install Now" button at the top of the sidebar.

DryerFox - Moxie Beta 2 Upgrade Completed

This post updates a couple of earlier posts about DryerFox in particular and how to deploy AIR apps with a seamless install from your web page.

Click on the "Install Now" button in the sidebar to get the latest DryerFox executable, or click here for the source.

Updating from AIR Beta 1 to AIR Beta 2

This step was pretty straight forward. The foo-app.xml schema has changed (again!) in FB3B2, so the simplest thing to do (and the sequence recommended in the release notes) was:

1. Create a new AIR project
2. Cut-n-paste the few project descriptors and icon paths from the old project to the new project. The same information exists in both projects, but the location of each XML node has changed.

So far, each public beta of AIR has changed the app.xml schema, so this seems to be an area of churn. Not a biggie though. It took about 3 minutes to do this.

Once DryerFox was compiling in FB3B2, I found that the stage.window property was renamed to stage.nativeWindow, so I have to update the startMove(), minimize(), and close() handlers. That took another 5 minutes, and then DryerFox was up and running again.

Adding UpdateManager

This was quite straightfoward. Kudos to Rich at the EverythingFlex blog for posting this useful class.

1. I copied the com.everythingflex.air.managers.UpdateManager.as class to my project.
2. I created a version.xml that matched the new version in -app.xml
3. Added the following two lines to the onAppInit() method:

import com.everythingflex.air.managers.UpdateManager;
var um:UpdateManager = new UpdateManager("http://www.dryerfox.com/blog/DryerFox/version.xml");

Seamless Installation update (imageurl is gone!)

I followed the instructions in the AIR release notes, and updated my install badge to the latest version bundled in the SDK. This folder can be found at "installRoot/Adobe Flex Builder 3/sdks/3.0.0/samples/badge".
In doing so I found that the new badge.fla no longer attempts to frame a supplied image with the button. I quite liked the embedded, so I just updated my older badge flash project from here, simply replacing older install.as with the newer, more robust version included in FB3B2.

Feel free to steal my backwards-compatible badge.swf if you want something you can just drop in as a replacement. Also note that Adobe now recommends setting Flash 8 as the minimum flash version. Since Flash 9 has well over 90% market penetration, that's a pretty reasonable setting.

SWFObject 2.0

Geoff Stearns and Bobby van der Sluis have been busy improving their individual SWF-hosting efforts into a combined project, just released on Google code. I've updated my "Install Now" button to use the SWFObject 2.0 script, and it seems to be working well. There is a syntax change from the previous use case, but it is still pretty simple to use.

Here's the new syntax:

<script type="text/javascript" src="swfobject.js"/>

<div id="dryerfox_flashcontent">
Whoa. You need to install <a href="http://www.adobe.com/go/flashplayer">Adobe Flash Player</a>.
</div>

<script type="text/javascript">
var flashvars = {
 appname:  "DryerFox",
 appurl:  "DryerFox.air",
 imageurl:  "dryerfox_badge.jpg",
 airversion:  "1.0.M5",
 buttoncolor: "008811",
 messagecolor: "000000"
};
swfobject.embedSWF( "badge.swf", "dryerfox_flashcontent", "217", "180", "8", "expressInstall.swf", flashvars );
</script>

The first two sections are unchanged. Include the swfobject.js script in a <script> tag, and your app's alternate content in a <div> tag. Then use a swfobject.embedSWF() method call to replace the alternate content with your SWF and viola!

DryerFox demoed at Best Buy!

Thanks for reading this far. I just thought I'd send a shout out to the techs at Best Buy (is that still Geek Squad?) for leaving their Vista demo systems wide open. On the weekend I was able to install DryerFox on a sweet HP 19" touchscreen system, and associate DryerFox with the .HTML file extension. Who sets up demo accounts with admin privileges?

Oh well, it was fun to drag the dryer around with my finger.

DryerFox - Maintenance mode

The DryerFox code is getting a wee bit stale, so it's time for an update. Rather than make incremental changes, I thought I'd lump in the following tweaks:

1. Build it with Flex Builder 3 (Moxie) Beta 2
2. Add in Rich Tretola's UpdateManager class
3. Deploy it with the new badge installer (now called Seamless Installation)
4. Wrap the Install Now badge using SWFObject 2.0

Four framework upgrades at once. What could possibly go wrong? ;-)

Stay tuned ...