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DrAlfredGreen
DrAlfredGreen
Known Participant
July 30, 2017
Question

Publishing one or multiple AIR apps

  • July 30, 2017
  • 2 replies
  • 607 views

I am in the beginning stages of finding the Flash Player replacement that I want to move toward.

My product is currently 120 swf instructional files that are about 500 KB each (fla files of about 4000 frames). My customers need all of these files available whether the internet is working or not. So we encourage streaming as the common practice, but we also encourage downloading a set of those files so that internet outage does not bring everything to a halt.

As I work through the process of publishing to AIR and then duplicate the download process, I become aware that every one of those instructional files will require separate permission to be installed. I don't think I can put my customers through that.

Is there any way that I can make those 120 swf files into one AIR app which would require only one permission to install?

This topic has been closed for replies.

2 replies

Z
zwetan_uk
Inspiring
July 31, 2017

you can have different strategies

  • embed all the SWF in the AIR app
    you use the class to dynamically add the SWF
  • have all the SWF in the AIR app that you load on demand
  • have the SWF on a remote server that you load from AIR
  • etc.


depending on where you publish (desktop, mobile) you may want want to use different strategies or different ones combined with each other

For a Desktop AIR app you could for example publish an app with all your .swf in a sub-folder,

it would work even if the ending AIR app is big (multiple GB), but you may not want (or can't) do that for a mobile app.

You also have cases where you want your main app (the loader of content) to stay as small as possible,

or maybe you want the external SWF assets to be updatable over time, etc.

One technique that work quite well is to implement your own URL caching,
it works like a URLLoader, so the data point to a URL, but if the cache is found you load the data from a local file.

Scenario is that at the first launch of the app, you got a list of assets to load,
in your case that would be about 60MB to download once, or download "on demand".

The advantages of doing like that is

  • you can invalidate your cache (all of it or some specific files) and then download it again
    case where you want to update your assets
  • you can update the AIR app to a new version while preserving the cached files
  • you can share the same assets for different apps (desktop Windows and desktop macOS)

Sure, it requires some programming to make all that works and sync,
but it is much better than depending on loading assets from a browser with the Flash Player plugin.

Check this old tutorial

Simple Apollo Offline Caching Example

Colin Holgate
Colin Holgate
Inspiring
July 31, 2017

You could do a Projector as the first SWF that opens. All the others should open much like they would in a browser.

You have at least 3 1/2 years to figure this out.

DrAlfredGreen
DrAlfredGreenAuthor
Known Participant
July 31, 2017

Thank you, Colin!

I think you have a great idea there. I have two questions:

1. So the initial AIR Projector would be only that, or could it be an app within a Projector?

2. Then all subsequent apps would be SWF files that would run via the installed Projector as a result of their running the initial app?

I do understand about the three and one-half years. But I will have customers beginning to ask as soon as I see them again.

In addition, if I decide that it needs to be huge change, I may need all of that time to learn the new development model. (I am not code proficient.)

Colin Holgate
Colin Holgate
Inspiring
July 31, 2017

Desktop AIR applications and Projectors are different things. You shouldn't need to learn anything.

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