Floating in the AIR
When I saw the releasing of AIR back then, I am very excited (and still am) by the interface and the new way of developing desktop application. But the apps available are scarce and the best are those demo apps from Adobe.
Time went on and AIR apps can now run on all major platform (Windows, Mac and Linux). And there seems to be more "real" apps available, which is written to solve a problem, instead of just showing off the capability.
I have came across two apps that really helps my work. The first one is Balsamiq Mockup from Balsamiq Studio. It is a tool that helps to speed up creating application prototype. It enable the user to draw wireframe for the interface and it provide a library of pre-drawn component which you can just drag and customize.
This is a wireframe I drew with Balsamiq Mockup, the table, the heading, the text box are all pre-drawn components.
Another application written in AIR that I have tried is PreziDesktop, it is an application to build "Prezi". Instead of using Power Point to illustrate your idea, it allows the user to convey in a more natural approach. Imagine having a canvas of unlimited size, you can draw and orient text as desire. You can zoom in when you want to drill into the details and pull out when you want to see the big picture. Prezi is a web application which you can edit through the browser and the AIR application is a companion tool which enable user to edit and present when they are offline.
Both tools make good uses of the UI capability, installation can be done very easily through a simple click on the install button from the webpage.
I believe this would be the trend for desktop application development for the following reasons,
Let's see what can we see next.
Time went on and AIR apps can now run on all major platform (Windows, Mac and Linux). And there seems to be more "real" apps available, which is written to solve a problem, instead of just showing off the capability.
I have came across two apps that really helps my work. The first one is Balsamiq Mockup from Balsamiq Studio. It is a tool that helps to speed up creating application prototype. It enable the user to draw wireframe for the interface and it provide a library of pre-drawn component which you can just drag and customize.
This is a wireframe I drew with Balsamiq Mockup, the table, the heading, the text box are all pre-drawn components.Another application written in AIR that I have tried is PreziDesktop, it is an application to build "Prezi". Instead of using Power Point to illustrate your idea, it allows the user to convey in a more natural approach. Imagine having a canvas of unlimited size, you can draw and orient text as desire. You can zoom in when you want to drill into the details and pull out when you want to see the big picture. Prezi is a web application which you can edit through the browser and the AIR application is a companion tool which enable user to edit and present when they are offline.
Both tools make good uses of the UI capability, installation can be done very easily through a simple click on the install button from the webpage.
I believe this would be the trend for desktop application development for the following reasons,
- Cross platform support
- Enable the reuse of component that can be used both online and offline.
- Leverage the capability of Flash
- Rollout easily as installation could trigger from webpage
Let's see what can we see next.