© 2010 Adobe Systems Incorporated. All Rights Reserved. Adobe Confidential. Progressing beyond the Desktop at Universities with Adobe AIR Joseph Labrecque | Senior Multimedia Application Developer
May 11, 2015
© 2010 Adobe Systems Incorporated. All Rights Reserved. Adobe Confidential.
Progressing beyond the Desktop at Universities
with Adobe AIR Joseph Labrecque | Senior Multimedia Application Developer
© 2010 Adobe Systems Incorporated. All Rights Reserved. Adobe Confidential.
Introduction
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Joseph Labrecque Flash Platform Developer
Multidisciplinary Digital Artist
Adobe Education Leader
University of Denver
Senior Multimedia Application Developer
Center for Teaching and Learning
Fractured Vision Media, LLC
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Topics Covered
University of Denver and the Flash Platform
CourseMedia™: Course Media Management System
Adobe AIR – Taking Things Beyond the Traditional Desktop
Integration with Projection Hardware
Access Native OS Processes
Mobile: Adobe AIR for Android
Project Examples
DropFolders
CourseMedia™ Projection System
CourseMedia™ StudyShuffler [Flash Professional]
CourseMedia™ StudyShuffler [Mobile Flex]
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Before we get into all this “beyond” the desktop stuff…
Let’s establish some background.
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University of Denver – Center for Teaching and Learning
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The Center for Teaching and Learning (CTL) offers a
variety of faculty development opportunities including
workshops and seminars, grant funding for faculty-
initiated projects, and support and development of
technological applications that advance teaching and
learning goals.
Two Units:
Teaching and Learning Support
Grants and Teaching Support
Application and Services Support
Research and Development
Application Development
(ColdFusion, Flash, Flex, AIR, Java, PHP)
Technology Advisement and Forecasting
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Flash Platform Overview
Client Runtimes
Flash Player for both desktop and mobile
Adobe AIR for desktop and mobile
Servers and Services
Flash Media Server
LiveCycle / Blaze DS
Flash Platform Services
Tools and Frameworks
Flash Builder
Flash Professional
Flash Catalyst
Flex Framework
Open Source Media Framework
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University of Denver – Use of the Flash Platform
We use a LOT of Flash and Adobe technologies in
our custom-built applications!
Flash Media Interactive Server
ColdFusion Enterprise
Flash Professional CS5
Flash Catalyst CS5
Flash Builder 4
Flex Framework
OSMF
Flash Player
Adobe AIR
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University of Denver – Some Major Initiatives
ALORA: Active Learning Object Repository Application
Backend media catalog
Image, video, and audio files
Public and private records
Flash GUI management interface (AS2!)
Many possible meta-schemas
CourseMedia™: Course Media Management System
Taps into ALORA and includes additional database of media
Local/personal media: embedded video, text slides, uploaded
images
Variety of presentation mechanisms
Full user-managed toolset
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Let’s talk about CourseMedia for a bit.
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DU CourseMedia™ - Course Media Management System
Web-based video clip generator
Per-object narrative recorder
Embed code generator for
Blackboard
Integrated media viewer
Content can be copyright-
protected or public
Content providers can generate
embed codes for external, public
videos
Bunch of other tools…
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DU CourseMedia™ - How it Leverages the Flash Platform
Media streamed (audio/video) and
verified (images) through Flash Media
Server
Online video clip editor – Flash
Integrated media viewer with complete
teaching and learning toolset – Flex
Gallery Arrangement Tool - Flex
Projection system integration - AIR
AIR interaction points across campus
AIR for Android mobile study app
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DU CourseMedia™ - Demonstration
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That’s all very nice… but…
What about going beyond the desktop?
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Beyond the Traditional Desktop
So what do we mean by this phrase?
Doing things with AIR that either traditionally were
not possible in Flash Player or similar
technologies.
Tapping into the hardware of hosted systems.
The ability to address native code on these
systems.
Expanding from desktop application installs to
mobile and devices.
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Hardware Integration
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CourseMedia™ Projection System
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Used by faculty to present
CourseMedia™ objects (Image,
Video, Audio, Text Slides, YouTube,
et cetera) via an instructor station
through attached system projectors.
Intelligently discovers how many
additional screens exist and at what
size to render a control panel and
presentation window for each one.
One additional screen allows the
extra option to have a split view in
order to still present comparisons.
Rooms equipped with up to 3
projectors at DU.
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CourseMedia™ Projection System - Hardware Access
“Screens are independent desktop areas within a possibly larger "virtual
desktop." The origin of the virtual desktop is the top-left corner of the
operating-system-designated main screen. Thus, the coordinates for the
bounds of an individual display screen may be negative. There may also be
areas of the virtual desktop that are not within any of the display screens.”
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One of the great advantages of AIR over
traditional Flash applications is that you
have this tight relationship with the OS
and system hardware.
import flash.display.Screen;
protected var screenArray:Array = new Array();
…
screenArray = Screen.screens;
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CourseMedia™ Projection System – Room Layout
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Screen 1 Screen 2 Console
Projector 1 Projector 2
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CourseMedia™ Projection System - Demonstration
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CourseMedia™ Projection System – Code Example
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OS Native Process Integration
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DropFolders
Adobe AIR 2.0 application to allow
HandBrake CLI to monitor watch and
destination folders.
Includes the ability to define and
manage custom presets.
Hands-free batch video encoding for
non-video people!
Created for faculty use.
Can be installed on a server.
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DropFolders - NativeProcess Access
“The NativeProcess class provides command line integration and general
launching capabilities. The NativeProcess class lets an AIR application
execute native processes on the host operating system. The AIR applcation
can monitor the standard input (stdin) and standard output (stdout) stream
of the process as well as the process's standard error (stderr) stream.”
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Basically, this new API allows your
application to communicate with just about
any process running on the host machine.
This can be an operating system core
process or a third party installed
application like HandBrake.
import flash.desktop.NativeProcess;
import flash.desktop.NativeProcessStartupInfo;
…
nativeProcess.start(nativeProcessStartupInfo);
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DropFolders - Demonstration
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DropFolders – Code Example
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Mobile Devices!
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CourseMedia™ StudyShuffler
Mobile is going to be HUGE in education.
Mobile study aid for art history students.
Adobe AIR 2.5 for Android.
Draws gallery and image information from
CourseMedia servers based on user login.
Image slides are displayed at random.
Tap the image to view metadata.
Shake to grab a new image.
Makes use of the Accelerometer to detect a shake.
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CourseMedia™ StudyShuffler - Demonstration
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CourseMedia™ StudyShuffler – Code Example
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CourseMedia™ StudyShuffler “Hero” - AIR for Android
What are the differences when working with
Flash Professional vs. Flash Builder 4.5 and
the “Hero” Flex SDK?
Much of the orientation and layout structure
is provided by Flex.
Many of the components are optimized for
mobile.
New “View” structures for working on mobile.
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CourseMedia™ StudyShuffler “Hero” - Demonstration
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CourseMedia™ StudyShuffler “Hero” - Code Example
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What next?
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Future Possibilities
So, what are some future possibilities for university tools
that go beyond the desktop? Generally the same for any
tool implementing the Flash Platform.
Flash Player
Take advantage of new capabilities as we move ahead
with new versions of the player.
AIR
With each version of AIR that is released, we see more
options for integrating more closely with other systems and
environments.
Mobile
Expanded use of Mobile as a study aid.
As devices become more powerful, we’ll be able to do
more and more with the tools we develop.
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Q & A
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Closing
Blog: http://inflagrantedelicto.memoryspiral.com/
Twitter: @JosephLabrecque
Email: [email protected]
Thank you…
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