Adobe AIR app ideas
While it’s still fresh in my mind, i wanted to commit to pixels the ideas that sprung to mind during the Adobe OnAIR Bus Tour.
AIR is a product that lets you develop desktop applications. The apps can interface with the Internets and your user’s local file system. Adobe has taken pains to ensure that the product is accessible to as many people as possible, from C-language coders using Flex, traditional HTML and javascript guys, and web sugar Flash guys and game developers like myself.
i don’t know why, but the one feature of AIR that gripped me most was the file drag n’ drop API. Here it is in a nutshell:
- drag and drop files onto your app
- teach your app to recognize the file type
- teach your app to respond to the file when it is dragged into the app, and when it is dropped (user releases the mouse button)
- drag stuff out of your app and on to other apps
- bundle file info with the doodad you’re dragging so that other programs will recognize and accept it (for example, your user drags an image out of your app and on to Photoshop. Photoshop likes image files, so it loads the sucker up.)
Wow! Pretty boring - unless you have imaaaaaaginaaaaationnnn ….
(twinkly stars-and-unicorns crossfade with tingly chime sound effects)
File Fiter
Rember Barcode Battlers? Scan the UPC code from a can of soup, and the app turns the info into battle stats for a fighting monster.
This idea is exactly like that, except … well, except nothing. It’s exactly like that. Drag any file onto your AIR app. The user sees an animation of a little squirmy file being dragged by the scruff of its neck. The user drops the file, and the app starts reading the file stats. i haven’t checked to see what we’ll know about the file, but i’m counting on at least file size, name, extension, and (i think) icon information that you can extract using the BitmapData class.
So you drop your file - taxes.xls. The AIR app starts building a little monster. The monster grows tentacles because the file name is 5 characters. The monster is purple with a +10 fire bonus because the filesize is over 10kb. The monster is armed with a deadly CALCULATOR because his file is spreadsheet-related.
Viola - your badass File Fiter is ready to fite. You can drop your hotcurry.jpg into the app and watch it mutate, then let the files go at it like bugs in a jar. Or you can upload your file and watch it punch (or calculate) the crap out of some other guy’s zip file.
It could be an automatic fite, or you could take control of your file a la Pokéwhatever - it all depends on how much work you wanna put into the app.
This is the kind of completely useless nonsense running through my head as i learned about the software. It’s so useless, i am happy to share it with you. Whoever builds it first, wins.
Angry Desktop Tiki
Angry Desktop Tiki ran through my brain when i was getting worried about the destructive things you could do with Adobe AIR. Angry Desktop Tiki is a polynesian god of the volcano. He looks like that idol from that 80’s board game Fireball Island, or like your dad when he stubs his toe. You know - all angry-styles.
Angry Desktop Tiki becomes enraged every X minutes and demands a sacrifice of 1 file. He could ask for just any file, or he could specify. Angry Desktop Tiki demands a targa!! Angry Desktop Tiki demands system.ini! So then you gotta go hunt down the file it wants and drag it over Angry Desktop Tiki’s gaping maw to sacrifice the file. Then Angry Desktop Tiki deletes it, cuz he’s a dick.
If you’re away from the desk when Angry Desktop Tiki demands a file sacrifice, he randomly chooses a file on your computer and eats it. Does that sound unfair? Tough nuts. Angry Desktop Tiki does what Angry Desktop Tiki wants.
i don’t know who in their right mind would want to download Angry Desktop Tiki, but the fact remains that Flash lets you do some pretty dastardly stuff, and AIR just gives you a suite of tools to be positively evil. i’ve said before that it’s like having super powers, and you have to choose whether to use those powers for good, or for Angry Desktop Tiki.
If you would like to build Angry Desktop Tiki in Adobe AIR, please contact me. Maybe you can become my supervillain arch nemesis?
I really love this idea. I started working in liberty basic (ya, I know, a really poor scripting language) and still haven’t got it right=)
Anyway as it stands it will eat a text file that you specify (but not much else).
no drag and drop, nothing.
The goal I was shooting for though was a program that sits on the desktop and depending on its internal stats it will grow hungry over time. When it reaches a certain stage you feed it a text file by clicking the program icon and browsing with a file dialog. It then determines file size, types of characters, and number of lines.
It starts out only being able to digest certain characters, providing minimal energy. It strips out those characters from the file, and dumps the rest right back in the text file.
Certain combinations of letters and punctuation will unlock the ability to digest even more types of characters. these combinations act as “genes”, and are picked from a random pool of predetermined genes. Some genes can partially digest a character (providing some energy). The character will then be dumped, the amount of “energy” subtracted from it’s ascii value before being dumped back in the text file.
The interpreter for the program also provides bonuses, in the form of better efficiency, the ability to eat larger files, the ability to digest previously indigestible characters, etc, when certain genes are found in combination.
In addition users can name their program, check statistics like efficiency, ability-to-digest, genes, bonuses, text that previously been digested, and text that in the process of being digested, etc, etc.
This in itself forms a text file which becomes important in a moment.
Finally two files may face off. The programs attempt in turn to digest each others code; and where code is missing, it’s assumed to be default to a particular value. Naturally the program thats quickest, can take bigger bites, most efficient, and can digest the widest variety of characters, will win;)
No idea when I’ll finish as it looks like I’m only at 7-8%, (being a newb to programing, and a hobbyist to boot!)
Hope you enjoyed, and hopefully I can show you a demo. I love toy ideas and this ones a very good one!
Thanks!
-Jack
Hilarious! Further proof that there’s a Collective Consciousness out there … a shared brain that we’re all tapping into. (i keep affirming this idea in the hopes that i can lay claim to royalties on the next big summer blockbuster)
Please share your progress as soon as you’ve got something!
- Ryan