Adobe Air Application case study - nycoders.org 0509
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The case study discusses the development of an Adobe AIR iPad app under tight deadlines and outlines various challenges faced, particularly with video and PDF integrations. Key issues included misconceptions about content playback ease, staffing complexities, and unexpected technical difficulties with native extensions and documentation. Despite the challenges, the project was completed on time, demonstrating a qualified success and providing recommendations for future considerations in platform performance and audience targeting.
Adobe Air Application case study - nycoders.org 0509
- 1. Adobe AIR iPad App Case Study “Unfortunately, we learned a lot!”
- 2. Project Background New Role, New Company History of Outsourcing at Company Staffing Situation Strategic Direction
- 3. An Opportunity! Boasting Called Client Crisis Can you replicate this vendor’s iPad platform and update the content?
- 4. An Opportunity? Boasting Called Client Crisis Can you replicate this vendor’s iPad platform and update the content? in 8 weeks!
- 5. Show app to the nice people now!
- 6. The App Presentation builder Asset Repository Asset types: PDF, video, HTML5 Tracking (Flurry analytics) Email sharing of assets
- 8. Options Native obj-C Appcelerator, PhoneGap, other Adobe AIR note: only for iPad 2
- 9. Options Native obj-C Appcelerator, PhoneGap, other Adobe AIR : you can always find a way to hack it out with Flash
- 10. The Research Phase Presentation builder Asset Repository Asset types: PDF, video, HTML5 Tracking (Flurry analytics) Email sharing of assets AIR workflow
- 11. Misconception #1 Adobe makes AIR, Adobe owns PDF standard PDF, certainly PDFs will be super easy! (I vaguely remember that Adobe AIR has native support for PDFs...) Is StageWebView the answer?
- 12. StageWebView Displays HTML Displays PDFs Displays Video Top of Display List, always! No stacking?! No animation...
- 13. Workaround for PDFs Convert PDFs to SWFs (PDF2SWF) Generate thumbnails from PDF Display as SWF Show results
- 14. Misconception #2 PDFs are hard, but videos will be easy! Flash has always been good for video, right?
- 15. Video playback on iOS FLV playback Using StageWebView with Video file Using StageWebView with Video embedded in HTML Using StageVideo: why we didn’t use this
- 16. Video playback on iOS You can have video auto play (SWV video) Or you can track video events (SWV HTML w/video) BUT YOU CAN’T HAVE BOTH!
- 17. Video playback on iOS You can have video auto play (SWV video) Or you can track video events (SWV HTML w/video) BUT YOU CAN’T HAVE BOTH! or can you? Stage Video is one option... And what about Full screen?
- 18. Our super-duper autoplay workaround HTML-StageWebView Communications Auto play AND video status! Show Code
- 19. Our super-duper full screen workaround Same trick, just with a delay HTML-StageWebView Communications Auto play AND video status and full screen! Show Code
- 20. Native Extensions extensionsforair.com Flurry, Native Dialog used Mail Composer considered Wretched documentation: illustrate Tricky!
- 21. Native Extensions Need to be defined in 2 places!
- 22. Native Extensions - 2 SDK may be required
- 23. Email Sharing Sendgrid is your friend! AWS or Rackspace to ser ve files
- 24. Unexpected Problems Keyboard/Text editing Small user community Crap Documentation Mysterious build errors Updating AIR runtime is complicated
- 25. What we loved JSON! Easy to staff Good performance, overall Familiar workflow Rapid development
- 26. Correct Conceptions Simple and quick architecture (show) Easy to build UI Able to adapt to schedule change (oops, only 5 weeks after all) Project ready on time as promised
- 27. Recommendations Consider target audience Learn platform first Where do you need performance? Work within limitations and you will be very happy
- 28. Summary Qualified success Video and PDFs much harder than expected Full screen scaling/pinching vector art problematic Worth considering, especially with cross-platform