Workflow for porting jQuery site with PHP/MySQL backend to Adobe Air?

Question

It looks like Adobe Air has some sort of support for jQuery, so I'm wondering if the workflow for porting to Adobe Air might be more automated than having to rewrite everything.. I'm fairly new to Air, so if so - what are the points of automation, and what are things that should not be automated (in conversion)?

• Are all jQuery functions supported - what about delegate(), for example
• For making server calls, would keeping my existing getJSON() and ajax() work, or would I have to use Air-specific functions?
• Are there any CSS or other complications for jQuery UI to AIR?

Answer 1

jQuery is a JavaScript library. You can use it to interact with Flash/Flex applications within a webpage, but it will not natively work as a library within an AIR application. AIR applications are typically built using Flex.

Flex is built using MXML, CSS, and ActionScript. While the CSS used for styling and positioning its components is similar, there are some differences from CSS2. You're not going to be able to drop in jQuery UI and have it work.

I'd highly recommend picking up a book about Flex or reading some tutorials to help you get started. "Programming Flex 3" helped me a lot when I was getting started.

If you embed a browser in your Flex application you can include an HTML page and from there you might be able to do what you're asking.