Updated: November 18, 2008
These release notes document known issues related to the Durango prerelease.
Overview
Durango is a framework that allows developers to build Adobe® AIR™ applications that can be customized by end-users. Durango allows developers, designers and end-users to easily mashup independent components to create new applications or extend existing Durango-enabled applications. These "mashable" components can be visual or non-visual (e.g., web services). Designers and developers can rapidly create prototype applications and then generate Adobe Flex® MXML source projects for further development. End-users can take parts of their favorite applications and bring them together in new ways.
System Requirements
The current version of Durango will run on Windows and Mac. Durango has identical system requirements to that of Adobe AIR. If you plan to use Flex Builder, the system requirements are identical to the system requirements for Flex Builder.
Features
Drag and drop components
Durango takes care of all the hard work so it is easy for a developer to build a reusable component, to make their application a source or consumer of reusable components, and to enable an application to be a receiver of components. Durango offers the following drag-and-drop functionality:
- Enable identification of reusable components in a running application
- Handle drag-and-drop operations
- Clone the components in the target application
- Hook component into running application
Connect components to each other
Durango also assists end-users and developers in making connections between Durango-enabled components. A component can accept inputs and produce outputs. The framework tries to intelligently connect components together (e.g., a component that provides a text output would be automatically connected to another component that expects a text input). At runtime, the end-user or the developer can inspect these connections and reassign them or disconnect them as appropriate.
Publish and reuse web services
Durango also provides a way to publish and reuse web services. A developer could drag and drop any web service which has been encapsulated into a Flex component (even when that component has no UI) from a palette (or web page) into their application and then enter some basic information such as subscriber keys or attributes/parameters into the service’s "inspector" or "properties panel".
Automatic code generation
Designers and developers can rapidly create prototype applications and then generate Flex Builder projects for further refinement in Flex Builder. If the component developer has elected to publish their source code on the internet, that code will be fetched and incorporated into the project. Otherwise, the component will be included in it’s compiled form.
Installation
This download will install Durango Desktop Integration, providing context menu access to New > Adobe AIR Application, and the Durango Sample Applications. On Windows, icons for the sample applications are installed to your Desktop. On Macintosh, users are invited to drag the sample applications folder to their Dock for easy access. More information for Macintosh users is presented in the installer summary dialog and in the Durango ReadMe file at /Applications/Adobe/Durango/ReadMe.txt.
Known Issues
The following is a list of things that don’t work quite like we think they should:
Syntax error with Create Flex Builder Project
If you invoke Create Flex Builder Project on a mashup where any component has multiple inputs for the same property, you will need to edit the resulting MXML to remove a syntax error. For example, if you use two or more KeywordImage components (from the City Maps sample) and the HTML mapping component, also from City Maps, the MXML will contain multiple binding strings of the form:
Keyword="{KeywordImageXXX.Keyword"}
which will cause a syntax error in the markup. Delete the binding expressions in-line, and add new <mx:Binding …/> tags, as in:
<mx:Binding source="coffee.Keyword" destination="map.Keyword"/>
<mx:Binding source="movies.Keyword" destination="map.Keyword"/>
Custom Application Chrome Theme Content May Not Appear
Using the Custom Application Chrome (Automatic layout) has an issue once "Create Flex Builder Project" has been invoked, and the application has been built in Flex Builder, that its contents may not appear. We are investigating this issue. You may restore the contents by editing Main.mxml and changing the tag pair "Reuse:DynamicPortal" to "mx:Canvas" (or other Container class), and removing "Reuse:constraints" and "Reuse:anchors" and their contents. This issue does not occur using the other templates.
For example, change this (in Main.mxml):
<Reuse:DynamicPortal id="dropHere" left="0" right="0" top="0" bottom="0">
<!-- Added Components Start Here -->
<dropNS0:ReusableImage id="ReusableImage162" x="4" y="84" source="foo.jpg" width="926" height="437" alpha="1" reusable="true" />
<dropNS1:ReusableTextArea id="ReusableTextArea501" x="4" y="4" text="Skiing Vail" width="926" height="72" alpha="1" reusable="true" />
<Reuse:constraints>
<mx:Array>
<SupportConstraints:PodConstraints pod="{ReusableImage162}" top="{durangoFBPCAnchorID0}"/>
<SupportConstraints:PodConstraints pod="{ReusableTextArea501}" bottom="{durangoFBPCAnchorID0}"/>
</mx:Array>
</Reuse:constraints>
<Reuse:anchors>
<mx:Array>
<SupportAnchors:VerticalAnchor id="durangoFBPCAnchorID0" y="80"/>
</mx:Array>
</Reuse:anchors>
<!-- Added Components End Here -->
</Reuse:DynamicPortal>
To this:
<mx:Canvas id="dropHere" left="0" right="0" top="0" bottom="0">
<!-- Added Components Start Here -->
<dropNS0:ReusableImage id="ReusableImage162" x="4" y="84" source="filefoo.jpg" width="926" height="437" alpha="1" reusable="true" />
<dropNS1:ReusableTextArea id="ReusableTextArea501" x="4" y="4" text="Skiing Vail" width="926" height="72" alpha="1" reusable="true" />
<!-- Added Components End Here -->
</mx:Canvas>
Durango Sample AIR Applications May Not Install Correctly on the Mac
On the Mac, installed Durango sample AIR applications may not be installed correctly when Durango is re-installed. In some cases where the Samples folder within the Durango installation is moved or copied, a subsequent installation of Durango will fail to install the samples. Unfortunately, one operation that has been seen to cause this problem is normal use of Apple Time Machine backup software. To work around the issue, try installing Durango a second time. If the samples are still not installed, on MacOS 10.5 and later you can use this command sequence:
cd /Applications/Adobe/Durango/Installers sudo 'locate lsregister' -kill -R -f -all s,l,n,u sudo ./installSamples.sh
On earlier versions of MacOS use the older syntax for the lsregister command. Essentially rebuild all entries in the Launch Services Database. That command is something like:
sudo 'locate lsregister' lsregister -kill -R -f -domain local -domain system -domain user
Then install the Durango samples as above.
