-
-
SEARCH
Accueil - Air apps need a widget mode
Last modified :
Air apps need a widget mode
It's been a long time that's one of my favorite feature request, but it becomes even more important nowadays as Adobe competitors are already on it.
Note that I do not want AIR to export widgets only, never! What I'm talking about is to have an option to export a sandboxed or normal version of the same AIR app. I'm with you on "launch another application from Air", "USB access" and all others extra system access on normal apps.
Oliver Goldman from Adobe said they would activate the restricted access mode as soon as possible on his blog exactly one year ago:
Some future release of AIR might offer to perform this function for you - that is, restrict the system access of certain applications. With that capability, you might make different decisions about which applications to install.
Mentally make the list of all connected AIR apps you use. Which are those that actually really need to fully access your hard drive to work as intended? A Twitter client or the excellent New York Times AIR reader doesn't need to fully access your file system to work. They only need a sandboxed local storage space and they already have one with the SharedObject. Other solutions as SQLite, application folder, etc ... are needed in my own opinion, but all sandboxed.
We need this more and more hardly because Silverlight 3 will, JavaFX will and now Curl 7.0 has announced that they would do so.
If Adobe make it real, they would have an additional step ahead of Microsoft, Sun, Curl and its competitors.
- Microsoft with Silverlight
- The implementation of OOTB (Out Of The Browser) functionality in Silverlight is known to be lame. Once the application is installed it must be launched from a standard shortcut (desktop or program files), it can not even be reduced to an icon on the systray, or be launched automatically at startup. There is no advantage for the user. It will spend less time to google the name of the app launch it from the original website.
- Sun with JavaFX
- It's beautiful. You can drag and drop the app directly from the web to the desktop. There is a demo with an MP3 player you can grab from the browser to the desktop without interrupting the play. But ... it works only with Internet Explorer on Windows for me.
- Curl
- The OOTB (Out Of The Browser) feature seems to be implemented as in Silverlight. Nothing seems to demo it. Alert me if I am wrong.
What we need is something that makes me dream since 2007 when I first saw this video of Astra IM client from Cerulean Studios. It means to be able to install any Flash application that runs on the web in one click onto the desktop. It is possible if it loads into Air when it is already installed. But as David Deraedt reported on Twitter a modification of the Flash player is needed to allow it. Drag and drop of an active application onto the desktop would be too complex to implement. A simple menu that appears on click or on right-click as in Silverlight would make the deal in my own opinion.
In addition to be very promising, export of sandboxed Air apps would also help reduce user anxiety caused by the display of the ugly warning message which warns him that the application is installed with full system access. Believe me or not, but I myself refuse to install many Air apps because of this. At work we are subject to professional secrecy, it is much too dangerous to allow an application to have full system access on a machine at work. We need to get rid of this warning. Companies pay for the certificate, they do not want any warning telling their application will potentially harm the user computer.
In summary, we need an option to export sandboxed AIR apps that still be able to be reduced to systray, be launched at boot and be launched by a shortcut. Each of those options could be opted-out by the user when he installs the application, as for Silverlight and Curl. All sandboxed Air apps could also have a default install folder so we can reduce the install process of an AIR application to one click only.
I know there is as many marketing and technical problem under this request, but we hardly need it as mush as our users. Everybody is agree that it could be a killer feature to add a better ROI on any website.
updated: last two paragraphs
Comments
totally agree…
let people make the choice to risk something or not !!!
As I said before, I completely agree.
It would be great for the users to have the ability to drag a flash app from the browser to the desktop, and then have it run inside AIR in a dedicated “widget” sandbox. I also agree about the fact that the important thing here is not necessary the dragndrop gesture : a simple menu would do.
To avoid any confusion, especially for AIR newcomers, I just wanted to remind that AIR already has pretty clever sandboxes http://www.adobe.com/devnet/air/articles/introduction_to_air_security.html, which are great for full featured desktop app. The discussion here is about having the ability to have a more limited sandbox for widget-like apps.
I think what we need to do now is clarify this proposition, and then report it to both the Adobe Flash and Adobe AIR teams.
Thank you David.
In fact, I think we can extract four independent killer feature requests:
1) Activation of the restricted mode on Air application export.
2) Creation of a widget mode (systray, start with the system, launch shortcut, default installation folder for all widgets, all sandboxed).
3) One click install of the application when in widget mode (as in Silverlight and Curl).
4) Enable the drag’n'drop of a Flash widget from browser to the desktop (as in JavaFX).
I will try to clarify this and post my feature requests to our beloved Air team. 
You’re right, those are different (but related) topics.
Here’s how I see it.
#1 A new, restricted sandbox mode for the AIR runtime
The AIR runtime would have a new restricted application sandbox which would apply for applications created as “widgets” (I’m not a fan of that term, not sure it truly defines what we’re trying to achieve here). The compiler would of course need to have an option such as -restrictedsandbox to create that kind of app.
The exact terms and limitations of the restricted sandbox are yet to be clarified, but I also think that the most important thing might be to disable full file system access, for example by limiting it to the app storage directory.
Of course, that would mean other related restrictions, such as the fact that a restricted app could not be replaced by a “normal” app, using the updater API for instance.
I don’t think the AIR framework API should be modified much. It would just throw security errors when trying to access data that is out of the sandbox, if an app runs in that mode.
I know, that’s easy to say…
# 2 A new install paradigm for those apps
Apps created to be run in restricted mode (aka “widgets”) could be installed with much less user warnings, like the “single click” install dialog you mentionned.
FlashPlayer would have the new ability to invoke the AIR runtime in order to pass it “install request” when a movie is dragged out of the browser. No need to have that movie running seamlessly during the process (I think JavaFx has this feature), it’s just the gesture we’re looking for, here. In other words, a flash movie could be used as an install badge when this gesture is performed. Simply dropping the movie out of the browser would trigger a new event which could be handled just like an “install” button of an Install Badge.
In other words, I’m not necessary talking about any movie having the ability to be installed as an AIR widget. It would still be very cool if it was the developer’s responsibility to create a separate .air file and set its URL within the flash app, like any install badge.
The “install on drag” feature seems to need a fifth feature request to me. I agree that it is more realistic to have it on a near future than to be able to drag an application onto the desktop, even if it could be killer feature for our users.
i’m affraid that we sadly won’t be able to use transparent windows in restricted mode (chromeless without transparency). I’m even not sure that will be able to use chromeless ones because of clickjacking considerations.
[…] are even using JavaFX to give others some style tips ! Who’d have thought it […]
[…] на последок: некоторые, используя JavaFX, умудряются давать советы, о том, как улучшить свой стиль! Кто бы мог подумать, что такое возможно в IT […]
As I’m on it, I think this would be a good thing that Adobe open a public AIR bugbase on http://bugs.adobe.com/ I don’t know where to fill my feature request report for this.