// Assign variable the link to the remote file.
var url = "http://<Replace with URL to file you want to download>";


// Specify the name you want to save the file as.
var fileName = "my_file_name.txt";


// HTTP Request to the specified URL .
var url = new air.URLRequest(url);


// Assigns a new URL loader.
var loader = new air.URLLoader();


// Tells the loader to use Binary as the data format.
loader.dataFormat = air.URLLoaderDataFormat.BINARY;


// Adds a listener to run when the download completes, runs downloadCompleteHandler function.
loader.addEventListener(air.Event.COMPLETE, downloadCompleteHandler);


// Loads the actual data the was requested above.
loader.load(url);


// Function to be run when the load completes
function downloadCompleteHandler(e) {


// Put loaded data into ByteArray
var data = air.ByteArray(e.target.data);


// Specifys a new directory in the Application Storage Dir
var dir = air.File.applicationStorageDirectory.resolvePath("Example Folder");


// Actually creates the directory specifed.
dir.createDirectory();


// Assign path to Application Storage Directory.
var file = air.File.applicationStorageDirectory;


// Specify our newly created folder within the App Storage Directory.
file = file.resolvePath("Example Folder");


// Specify what we want our downloaded file to be called. we assigned the file name above.
file = file.resolvePath(fileName);


// Create new File Stream used to write to newley create file within the App Storage Dir
var fileStream = new air.FileStream();


// Open the new file in Update mode (means we can read/write to the new file)
fileStream.open(file, air.FileMode.UPDATE);


// Writes the loaded data from the ByteArray to our new file, the 0 and data.length tell it to write all of the bytes captured by the byte array.
fileStream.writeBytes(data, 0, data.length);


}

There you have it, you should now be able to download and write remote files in Adobe Air! Ive tried to explain best I can but let me know if ive made any mistakes and ill alter it. You can also go further with this example and add more event listeners  to capture errors or the progress of the download.

I couldn’t believe it when I first read about it, all I wanted is for a dynamically created document to be printed directly from my Adobe Air app, without printing headers and footers. I also didn’t want my users to have to change there browser settings to remove these. So that ruled out using the System Browser via the navigateToURL() function. Basically the window.print() function is not supported in Air. There also appears to be this dark cloud over the subject of printing support, everyone’s talking about it, but nothing is coming back from Adobe in the way of a “fix date” or when it is likely to be supported. I’ve heard you can print using the flash.printing.PrintJob API which I believe is quite awkward. I hope Adobe Air isn’t favouring Action Script users! ;o)

My solution? PDF! It suits me to generate PDF’s that need to be printed, opening them within my Air app and include the standard Adobe Reader controls to Print, Zoom and so on. This actually proved to be better altogeather, as they are also files that can be emailed and archived. An interesting concept for producing PDF’s within Air is AlivePDF. AlivePDF is written in Action Script 3 I believe and means you don’t have to generate the PDFs using a server side language like PHP. I’m using a server side language by the way, it just suites for my project.

There you have it, first major obsticle: No printing support in Adobe Air (as of version 1.5 anyway).

I thought that i would log my events that i encounter when creating an application(s) using Adobe Air. This is the first time i have used Air and i must admit the whole concept of the Intergrated Runtime is quite exciting.

I am a guy from the UK who enjoys creating web based applications! Don’t shoot me if the grammer and English in general isnt 100%. The coding languages I use are PHP, HTML and limited JS. I have just started using JQuery, alot, and i like it ;o).

There you go, a brief intro! Enjoy.