Comments on: How AIR should NOT be used

By: jsherk

jsherk — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 01:57:00 +0000

It’s been a year and half since any comments… anybody want to update us on Shu versus airAveer? Good, bad and the ugly?
Thanks

By: t

Fri, 16 May 2008 08:01:43 +0000

thanks

By: Elliott

Elliott — Thu, 01 May 2008 18:06:28 +0000

Hi, just wanted to get out the word that there is actually a new air2exe application out that runs a bit faster and definatly smaller. If anyone is interested in testing out the demo it’s available at http://www.airaveer.com/.

By: Mark

Mark — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 20:35:38 +0000

An interesting concept and one that we will look at. We built our first AIR application, and of course the client didn’t like all the install dialogs, etc. So this gives us another option to look at. Some clients want the application to run off the CD (in the process a db could be copied to the user area to store information). Although I have not investigated, this solution may allow you to protect with SecuROM, so if the CD is copied, it won’t work.

By: John

John — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 15:33:39 +0000

I think you miss the point – Shu is enabling us to do all AIR does and more. It is /adding/ functionality, not taking away.

“You`ll loose the smooth seamless installation functionality of AIR apps”
If you call end user having to install your app a benefit!

“What about autoupdate”
Why auto update an app not installed?

“What if the runtime updates?”
If you use Shu I presume your app will keep working – regardless of any runtime on the system, as Shu embeds runtime AFAIK.

You state Zinc 3 being good. In my (and others) opinion this is simply untrue. We have had bug after bug from this product.
We recently switched to Janus for swf2exe.

With there now being an air2exe tool, we have a far better choice. Surely that can only be a good thing.

By: Fabianv

Fabianv — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 09:15:19 +0000

Yeah I have to be honest I was quite confused when I saw shu-player.

Mixed emotions, not exactly sure how I should feel about it.

By: brian

brian — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 06:30:21 +0000

Thanks for pointing Shu out. I’m working on a DVD photo gallery project that needs to allow a user to save a photo from the DVD to their system. But, because AIR requires an install, I had been planning on using Zinc. In some cases like mine it is unreasonable to ask a user to install the AIR runtime just to play an interactive DVD — so Shu may make it easier to deploy air apps into more situations. It may be part of AIR 2.0 — but thats not here now

By: Steve

Steve — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 03:31:24 +0000

the most AIR weakness is extendible missing.
becaus it is one desktop software, the most need is to integrate with desktop flexiblily.
such as call C/C++ .dll/.so

I hate this missing…

By: Benjamin (Admin)

Benjamin (Admin) — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 22:44:30 +0000

I just want to make one thing clear. It was never my intention to offend the smart people that build Shu. I think they did an awesome job. I just don`t understand why to use AIR for this kind of stuff if everything that makes AIR unique doesn`t count for you? I think with Shu these apps become traditional desktop apps and for this kind of stuff we already have lots of options.

By: Danilo Celic

Danilo Celic — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 18:45:42 +0000

I saw the link to the Shu site yesterday as well. I was intrigued given that there are some limitations with AIR as of V1.

Regarding your points:
Size of install: I’ve not worried about install size in years, and I don’t know the install size of the Shu wrapper, plus the AIR runtime, plus any code that I write, so unless it’s in the multiple hundreds of MB, I don’t see it as an issue for me, how that pans out for folks in general, don’t know, but for me not anywhere near a deal breaker.

Seamless install: It appears to me that there is no install process at all, you just run the application, so I could see an argument being made that that is better for the user.

autoupdate: as there is no mention about autoupdate, or lack thereof, I can’t readily dismiss Shu because of that, and wouldn’t include it in any list, as from a developer standpoint, making the new build would be taking the same about of time, and depending on the specific implementation Shu uses, it could be fairly easy to add functionality to get the updated bits. So for now, not an issue for me.

Updates to the runtime: It is my understanding that AIR updates will install as a separate runtime, leaving the “old” runtime in place. I’m not sure if an application installed under an “old” runtime will automatically use the “new” runtime. For now, this is an open question for me as well.

My first issue with this was how can they bundle the runtime with their application. SO I did a little checking and it appears that Adobe does allow this if you’ve gone through the redistribution licensing agreement:
http://www.adobe.com/products/air/runtime_distribution1.html

However, the Shu site makes no mention of them having the agreement, and until I get around to sending them them if they do have that agreement in place, then for me as a self-protection measure, I’d not go with Shu, just now.

Will have to think if there are other issue I may have, but I’ll definitely be checking this project out to see if it will be beneficial for any projects I’ll be working on.