A colleague of mine at C4 just pointed out the “Shu Player” to me.
It’s third-party wrapper software that packages up AIR apps so they become standalone apps that can be installed without the AIR runtime, and provides some additional functionality that the AIR API itself does not.
From a quick scan of their command list, they offer the ability to run external apps (however, it doesn’t look like you can include command-line arguments, which is a serious drawback), and non-SQLite database support (they show a MySQL connection; it’s not clear whether only MySQL is supported, or if it’s more like a JDBC-type database abstraction layer).
It’s quite a minimal set of additional functions (if they had an RS232 / COM port API, I’d be very pleased, because I’d be able to shed a tier of .NET on one of the apps I’m working on, which would be no reason to shed a tear (ba-doom tsch)) .. compared to SWF Studio or Zinc, it’s not a very feature rich wrapper. Their marketing blurb tries to position their product as an extensible base platform so you can roll your own additional functionality, but I doubt that will appeal to most RIA developers. I don’t have the faintest idea how to build a DLL, and I’m quite happy to remain ignorant.
Reactions in the blogosphere range from enthusiastic to hostile. My own feeling is that there are more important things that need doing to improve basic AIR functionality. For my purposes, a software update mechanism that makes updating AIR apps easier is more important that another bulkware wrapper system …
“however, it doesn’t look like you can include command-line arguments, which is a serious drawback”
Think your wrong there. Works fine passing arguments.
“and non-SQLite database support”
Thats built in to AIR. AIR has no MySQL support, but Shu adds this.
I think they have pitched this as simply adding the common things you would expect in AIR yet Adobe have missed out. And at least if there is specialized things you need to do, having an extension api at least doesnt lock out the option.
True, but the extensibility argument is moot unless you have enough people to get on board and write more extensions – and it’s the bells and whistles that attract people in the first place.
By “non-SQLite database support” I meant databases *other* than SQLite.
I’ve imported the Shu .swc to my library path in Flex, but i’m not able to use the functions listed on shu-player.com. Is this the correct syntax:
var shu:Shu= Shu.GetInstance();
shu.System.launchFile(“thefile.exe”);