Progressing beyond the Desktop at Universities with Adobe AIR

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Progressing beyond the Desktop at Universities
with Adobe AIR
Joseph Labrecque | Senior Multimedia Application Developer

Introduction
2
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

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

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.

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;

CourseMedia™ Projection System – Room Layout
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Screen 1 Screen 2
Console
Projector 1 Projector 2

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);

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: Joseph.Labrecque@du.edu
Thank you…
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37

Progressing beyond the Desktop at Universities with Adobe AIR

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