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Release notes for Adobe AIR developers

Release date: 2/24/2009

Getting Started

Welcome to the release notes for AIR 1.5.1. This document contains system requirements, installation instructions, known issues, and other information about using the AIR 1.5.1 runtime.

• System requirements
• Supported languages
• Verson information
• New features in AIR 1.5.1
• Latest Flash Player plugin
• New APIs
• Fixed bugs
• Installing Adobe AIR
• Uninstalling Adobe AIR
• Installing AIR applications
• Tips and tricks
• Known issues and limitations
• Adobe AIR SDK mac and Windows
• Release notes for Flex SDK and Flex Builder

System requirements

Additional Requirements for Linux Systems

Supported languages

The Adobe AIR 1.5.1 installation and runtime user experience supports the following languages.

• Chinese Simplified
• Chinese Traditional
• Czech
• Dutch English
• French
• German
• Italian
• Japanese
• Korean
• Polish
• Brazilian Portuguese
• Russian
• Spanish
• Swedish
• Turkish

Version Information

WebKit version: 34190

libXML version: 2.6.31 on Windows (system libXML on Mac/Linux)

New features in AIR 1.5.1

Adobe AIR 1.5.1 is a software update featuring improved reliability, compatibility and security. It is recommended for all AIR users. AIR applications developed for previous versions of AIR do not need to be updated to work with this update.

Latest Flash Player plugin

AIR 1.5.1 includes an updated version of the Flash Player plugin (10.0.22) which is used when displaying SWF files inside HTML. For more information, see /support/documentation/en/flashplayer/releasenotes.html.

New APIs

InvokeEvent.reason

This new property of the InvokeEvent event indicates if the application was launched manually by the user or automatically at login. The InvokeEventReason class (in the flash.desktop package) defines the two possible string values for the InvokeEvent.reason property. InvokeEventReason.LOGIN defines the login case; InvokeEventReason.STANDARD defines the standard case.

Capabilities.cpuArchitecture

This new property returns the processor architecture of the machine, as a string (such as "PowerPC" or "x86").

If you want to take advantage of these new AIR 1.5.1 APIs, update your application descriptor to use the 1.5.1 namespace:

 xmlns="http://ns.adobe.com/air/application/1.5.1" 

If you do not need to use these new APIs, you do not need to update your application descriptor. Your application will be able to run with AIR 1.5.1 when the user updates the version of the runtime installed on their system.

For overlaying the AIR 1.5.1 SDK in Flex Builder, see the section of How to overlay AIR SDK for use with Flex SDK below.

Fixed Bugs

These bugs have been fixed in AIR 1.5.1.

Mac and Windows

Linux

Installing Adobe AIR

Installing the AIR 1.5.1 runtime and AIR applications requires you to have administrator privileges on your computer.

Install the runtime on a Windows computer

1. Download the runtime installation file from http://get.adobe.com/air.
2. Double-click the runtime installation file and follow the prompts to complete the installation.

Install the runtime on a Mac computer

1. Download the runtime installation file from http://get.adobe.com/air.
2. Double-click runtime installation file and follow the prompts to complete the installation.
3. If the Installer displays an Authenticate window, enter administrator and password.

Install the runtime on a Linux computer

1. Download the runtime installation file from http://get.adobe.com/air.
2. Double-click runtime installation file AdobeAIRInstaller.bin and follow the prompts to complete the installation.
3. If you're not logged in as an administrator, invoking the installer prompts you to enter the admin password (root password for non-Debian systems and sudo user's password for Debian systems).
4. Also note the following:

• You need to grant execution rights to the bin file (chmod +x AdobeAIRInstaller.bin).
• The runtime is installed as a native package. In other words, as rpm on an rpm based distribution and deb on a Debian distribution. Currently AIR does not support any other package format, so it may not install on distributions like Slackware, etc.
• Adobe AIR on Linux consists of two packages - adobeair1.0 and adobe-certs. When you run AdobeAIRInstaller.bin, it installs these two packages.
• The runtime is installed to the following location: /opt/Adobe AIR/Versions/1.0.

Uninstalling Adobe AIR

Once you have installed the runtime, you can uninstall using the following procedures.

Uninstall the runtime on a Windows computer

1. In the Windows Start menu, select Settings > Control Panel.
2. Select the Add or Remove Programs control panel.
3. Select "Adobe AIR" to uninstall the runtime.
4. Click the Change/Remove button.

Uninstall the runtime on a Mac computer

• Double-click the "Adobe AIR Uninstaller", which is located in the /Applications/Utilities folder.

Uninstall the runtime on a Linux computer

1. Use the Uninstall AIR Runtime menu item in the Programs > Applications menu. Use the system's package manager to remove the adobe-certs package.
2. AIR registers the mime-type "application/vnd.adobe.air-application-installer-package+zip", which means that .air files are of this mime-type and are therefore owned by AIR.

Installing AIR applications

1. Badge install in web browser: Users may install AIR applications via the seamless install feature (badge install), which will install or update the AIR runtime as needed. With the AIR runtime installed, clicking on a link/badge in the web page will start the application installation. Users will be prompted for installation location and administrator password if necessary.
2. Install from local .air files: With the AIR runtime installed, users can double-click the .air file to invoke the application installer. The installer begins with a security dialog describing the publisher identity. Users will be prompted for installation location and local user password if necessary.

Tips and tricks

Setting the MIME type on your web server for AIR application

For client browsers to recognize an AIR application when being downloaded, the web server hosting the AIR application needs to map the application/vnd.adobe.air-applicationinstaller-package+zip MIME content type to the ".air" extension. For example, for an Apache web server, add the following to the AddType section:

 AddType application/vnd.adobe.air-application-installer-package+zip .air 

adl - Debugging Support

The debugging support is enabled by default when launching an application using ADL. Using debugging support, the runtime makes additional checks and generates additional debugging information including debugging information from Flex Builder and also displays the unhandled exception dialogs. Also, your application may run slower while using debugging support. Using adl with -nodebug flag will disable the debugging support. Running with -nodebug flag also emulates the execution mode of an installed application more closely.

Application installation tips and tricks on Linux

1. You can also install AIR applications using the command "/usr/bin/Adobe AIR Application Installer <full path to the air file here>". Currently relative paths do not work.
2. If double-clicking on .air file, after having installed the runtime, does not launch the application installer (this happens on some older distributions), you might have to log out and log back in.
3. To clean up the machine and try a fresh installation, you may remove the .adobe and .macromedia folder in the home directory for both root and the current user, also remove the .appdata folder in the home directory.
4. To generate logs for runtime installation, create the empty file .airinstall.log (touch .airinstall.log) in user home directory. Please post this file when reporting issues in the forum.
5. To generate logs for application installation, create the empty file .airappinstall.log (touch .airappinstall.log) in user home directory. Please post this file while reporting issues in the forum.

Known issues and limitations

A knowledge base of AIR issues and other helpful AIR documentation is available at the AIR support web site: /support/air/.

Mac and Windows

AIR application might not work correctly when the language is Español Latinoamérica

If the operating system's language setting is Español Latinoamérica (Latin American Spanish), AIR application might not work correctly. Please remove it from your language list and use Español (Spanish) instead.

PDF: HTML JS bridge is not working for PDF in AIR app: scheme in Acrobat9 on WIN

In Acrobat/Reader 9.0, if PDF is loaded by HTMLLoader in app: scheme, the HTML JavaScript bridge from HTML to PDF does not work. A workaround is to use file: scheme instead. Acrobat/Reader 9.1 fixed this issue.

SWF-in-HTML: In windowless mode, Ctrl+V does not paste

On Windows, Ctrl-V does not paste in text field when application is using a windowless mode SWF loaded by HTMLLoader.

XMLHttpRequests limitations using HTMLLoader on Windows

When using HTMLLoader on Windows, there is no support for auto redirection from PUT, POST, or DELETE methods. AIR also does not support flat or gzip decompression of XMLHTTP responses.

Links to images do not load properly

Clicking a link that loads an image (rather than an HTML page) does not render the image, but displays the image bytes.

Using the data property for NativeMenuItem

For the NativeMenuItem.data property, the int or Number objects are not supported in this release.

ContextMenu.visible property

Setting the ContextMenu.visible property has no effect. Items that are set by setting visible to false will remain visible in the ContextMenu. We recommend using the enabled property instead.

Minority scripts support for China National Standard GB 18030-2000

Minority script characters such as Tibetan may not display correctly in AIR applications.

Windows 64-bit OS : Installing applications to 64-bit Program Files folder AIR

If an AIR application is installed to 64-bit "Program Files" folder, an error is thrown stating that the application can not be installed. However, the application still gets installed to the "Program Files(x86)" folder.

app: URL scheme with PDF open parameters on Mac

Using the app: URL scheme with PDF open parameters (for example, app:/myfiles/test.pdf#page=2) does not finish loading on Mac OS.

Date JavaScript objects passed through a sandbox bridge lose their original type

The workaround is to serialize the data and pass date/time as milliseconds.

Setting the width or height of an iframe to 100% may cause unexpected results

The workaround is to set iframe to a value less than 100%.

NativeWindow.height reported incorrectly in resize event

The NativeWindow.height property is reported incorrectly when read in a resize event handler. The workaround is to use the afterBounds.height property of the event instead.

Setting idleThreshold

If you set the idleThreshold property of the NativeApplication object after registering for the userIdle event, you get the default idleThreshold setting rather than the value you set. The workaround is to unregister the event handler, set the threshold, and then re-register.

Tracing to console

If your system has an mm.cfg file containing the parameter TraceOutputFileEnable=1, no trace output is sent to the console. The workaround is to remove this parameter from the mm.cfg file. The mm.cfg file is located at "c:\Documents and Settings\<username>" on Windows and "\Users\<username>" on Mac OS.

Passing header "Cookie" to URLRequest.requestHeaders

Passing header "Cookie" to the requestHeaders property of a URLRequest object when manageCookies=true is not sent to the server.

Full certificate path required for code signing

Some certificate vendors (VeriSign for example) do not provide by default the full certificate path; however, this is required for signing AIR applications. For information about creating a keystore with a full certificate chain, see http://access1.sun.com/techarticles/Keytool.html.

setAsDefaultApplication() and file extension association on Windows

On Windows, once the user selects an association application for an extension using Explorer, using NativeApplication.setAsDefaultApplication() fails to set the AIR application as the default application.

ADT using proxy with authentication

ADT currently does not work with proxy settings that require authentication.

Dock Icon Event Registration

On Mac, using NativeMenu.addItemAt(item, 0) on the dock icon will cause all menu items below it to lose their select event handlers. The workaround is to use NativeMenu.addItem(). To make the last item appear on top of the menu item, destroy the old menu, and then create a new menu.

NativeWindow width and height

When setting the width, height, or bounds properties of a NativeWindow object in one synchronous function, the value reported for height will be incorrect if it is checked in handler of a resize event.

Size of Flash content in HTML Content

When the size of the native window displaying HTML with embedded Flash content in an HTMLLoader is smaller than the size of the flash content, the Flash content appears on top of the scroll bars.

Updating AIRIntrospector

In order for the application using Adobe AIR HTML/JavaScript Application AIRIntrospector to work with AIR 1.5 runtime, AIRIntrospector must be upgraded to the AIR 1.5 version of the AIRIntrospector and the application must be rebuilt.

Change in HTMLLoader.loadString behavior for AIR 1.5 applications

In AIR 1.5, content loaded into the HTMLLoader with the loadString method is placed in the non-application sandbox by default in order to make sure that untrusted content is isolated. If the content is trusted, and you want it to be loaded into the application sandbox, set the HTMLLoader.placeLoadStringContentInApplicationSandbox property to true. For AIR 1.1 and earlier applications, the loadString behavior is unchanged.

SWF content in applications using transparent windows

SWF content in HTML does not display properly for applications using transparent windows.

Audio issues for applications using RTMFP with P2P

For applications using RTMFP with P2P, audio may drop out after 3 minutes if the publisher machine has limited system memory.

Using Adobe Flash Rights Management Server 1.0x with Adobe AIR 1.5

If you are using the Adobe Flash Rights Management Server version 1.0 or 1.0.1 and plan to deliver encrypted content to applications using AIR version 1.5, please contact your Adobe representative to obtain an updated DRM_Section.xml file. FMRMS 1.5 customers already have the updated version of this file.

Using HTML markup with innerHTML containing attribute names prefixed with "on"

In the application sandbox, HTML markup using innerHTML that contains attributes prefixed with "on," the attributes are not transformed into event handlers due to security restrictions, and will fail silently without throwing an exception.

Linux

Runtime installation

• Some distributions have issues with .bin in the filename. Remove the .bin from the installer file name and run the installer.
• For Debian based systems like Ubuntu, gnomesu/kdesu/kdesudo should be there for installation. Otherwise, install xdg-su and enable root user.

Application installation

• The programMenuFolder entries in the AIR application descriptor are not honored in some older distributions and also in KDE4.
• If there are space characters in the text of the <name> tag in the AIR application descriptor, an entry in the System Applications menu is not created in some older distributions.
• You must use an absolute path to the AIR file when installing an AIR application on the command line.
• Installation progress bar goes to completion and then resets itself.
• Special characters like single and double quotes are not supported in some application xml tags. This may cause an application to not install.

Multi-level program menu folders do not work

Multiple entries of AIR installer may appear (for example, also added to the "Others" menu in Ubuntu).

File type registration

• Application icons do not appear for some unknown extensions (e.g. abc, def etc.) on certain KDE distributions.
• The application will not register itself as secondary handler (it will not appear in the "Open With" context menu), for already registered extensions (e.g. txt, html).

Windows and menus

• Windowing actions (setting of bounds, maximize etc.) are always asynchronous.
• Transparency will not work with virtualization software like VMWare.
• Transparent windows do not allow mouse events to pass through.

LocalConnections

LocalConnections between AIR apps and SWFs require Flash Player 10.

Encrypted local store

• Local store data cannot be accessed when session is exported using SSH or when session is changed to another user using su.
• ELS is bound to the desktop environment in which ELS database was first created. An ELS store created in KDE will not be accessible in GNOME and Vice Versa
• Encrypted Local store uses Keyring (GNOME) or KWallet (KDE). System may prompt for a password for accessing ELS data.
• Application name is reported as "anonymous" in the KWallet password dialog.

PDF

To view PDF content in AIR applications, you should have Adobe Reader for Linux version 8.1.1 or higher installed.

Adobe AIR SDK Mac and Windows

How to overlay AIR SDK for use with Flex SDK

Note: You do not need to recompile your application to take advantage of the compatibility, stability and security improvements. However to take advantage of the new APIs introduced in this release you will need to update your application descriptor to 1.5.1 (see New APIs section)and recompile your app using the instructions below.

1. Exit Flex Builder, if you are running it.
2. (Optional) Back up your Flex SDK. The Flex SDK directory will be permanently modified in the next step. Back up the Flex SDK by copying the entire directory. In Flex Builder, for example, copy the directory located at: WIN: c:\Program Files\Adobe\Flex Builder 3\sdks\3.2.0MAC: /Applications/Adobe Flex Builder 3/sdks/3.2.0
3. Download the appropriate AIR SDK file for your operating system and save it to the root directory of the Flex SDK.
   • WIN: AdobeAIRSDK.zip
   • MAC: AdobeAIRSDK.dmg
4. Extract the contents of the AIR SDK archive and overwrite the existing SDK files.
   • WIN: Right-click on the ZIP file and select "Extract All" or use the decompression tool of your choice.
   • MAC: double-click the dmg file to mount the volume, then copy the files to Flex SDK directory. For example, in Terminal, cd to the root directory of the Flex SDK and run this command: ditto "/Volumes/AIR SDK/" "/Application/Adobe Flex Builder 3/sdks/3.2.0/"

Linux

Installing the AIR SDK

1. The SDK is available in tbz2 format.
2. To install the SDK, create a folder in which you want to unzip the SDK, then use the following command: tar -jxvf <path to AIR-SDK.tbz2>

Known issues with ADT

1. ADT does not work with GNU Java, which comes as a standard with many Linux distributions. To get it working, ensure that you have Sun Java in your path. Try the command java -version in the terminal to figure out which flavor of Java is being used.
2. Minimum required version of Sun Java/JRE is 1.4.2.
3. This build does not work with Flex Builder Linux Alpha. Use the command line options to package AIR applications.

Release notes for Flex SDK and Flex Builder

The release notes for the Flex SDK and Flex Builder can be found at the following locations:

• Flex SDK: /support/documentation/en/flex/3/releasenotes_flex3_sdk.html
• Flex Builder: /support/documentation/en/flex/3/releasenotes_flex3_fb.html

Copyright © 2009 Adobe Systems Incorporated. All Rights Reserved. Adobe, the Adobe logo, AIR, ActionScript, Flash, and Flex are trademarks or registered trademarks of Adobe Systems Incorporated in the United States and/or other countries. Other marks are the properties of their respective owners.

This computer program is protected by copyright law and international treaties. Unauthorized use, reproduction, or distribution of this program, or any portion of it, may result in severe civil and criminal penalties, and will be prosecuted to the maximum extent possible under the law.

Notices, terms and conditions pertaining to third party software are located at /go/thirdparty/ and incorporated by reference herein.