Flash Builder 4 and Flex 4 Bible- P21: When Macromedia first released Flash MX in 2002, the product was branded as the new way to build Rich Internet Applications (known by the acronym RIA). The term was invented at Macromedia to describe a new class of applications that would offer the benefits of being connected to the Internet, including access to various types of Web-based services, but would solve many of the nagging issues that had been inherent in browser-based applications since the mid-1990s | Chapter 31 Deploying Desktop Applications with Adobe AIR FIGURE An AIR installer s confirmation screen Uninstalling AIR applications You uninstall an AIR desktop application in the same manner as most other native applications. Follow these steps to uninstall AIR applications in Windows 1. Go to the Windows Control Panel. 2. Select Add or Remove Programs on Windows XP or Uninstall a program on Windows Vista or Windows 7. 3. Select the application entry. 4. Click Remove on Windows XP or Uninstall on Windows Vista or Windows 7. 5. When the Adobe AIR Setup dialog box appears click Uninstall to remove AIR from your system. To uninstall an AIR application on Mac OS X just delete the application package file from the Applications folder by dragging it into the trash. Note Running the AIR installation package file after the application is installed also results in displaying the setup dialog box and displays the uninstall option. Flex Application Tips and Tricks with AIR As described earlier in this chapter the subject of developing Flex applications for desktop deployment with AIR is too large for a single chapter. There are however a few specific things you do a bit differently in a desktop application and there are many Flex SDK features that are available only when you re developing for AIR. These include 971 Part V Additional Subjects Debugging AIR applications in Flash Builder Rendering and managing HTML-based and PDF-based content Using the WindowedApplication component as the application s root element Creating channels at runtime for communicating with Remoting gateways In this section I briefly describe some of these programming and development techniques. On the Web If you want to review the sample applications described in this section extract the contents of the file into the root folder of the chapter3 0 Flex desktop application project. Each sample application includes both an application file and an application descriptor file. .
