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Appcelerator’s Titanium. Think “Adobe AIR” But Open-Source

1 Comment 24 January 2009

Titanium, from Appcelerator, Inc., is described by the company as an open-source platform which can be used to create desktop apps for both Windows and Mac OS X* based solely on Web technologies like Silverlight, Flash, HTML, CSS, etc. (PHP is currently unsupported but plans are underway.)

If the whole concept sounds familiar, it should. This is basically like the Adobe AIR platform with the key difference being that the Titanium platform is 100% open-source, unlike Adobe’s solution. From titaniumapp.com:

“Fundamentally both products are similar. Both Titanium and AIR are free, both are built on top of the open source WebKit engine, and both support development of desktop applications using standard Web technologies.

Our belief is that products like Titanium are ideally suited for open source because they address a large, horizontal problem. As a result, our hope is that we can attract a large open source community around Titanium, which will help it grow and mature into the leading solution for building rich desktop and mobile applications.”

One additional difference I found to be interesting: Titanium applications are currently capable of being produced as standalone applications. In other words, you can publish an application for users to download and install without having to have the Titanium framework also installed on their machine. The FAQ section goes on to state that, in future versions, publishers can choose to separate the runtime from the app much like they’re currently forced to do with Adobe AIR applications. (Speaking of, the company’s list of frequently asked questions re: the project is quite thorough.)

If you’re a Web and/or current AIR developer and Titanium sounds intriguing, check out the project’s official site: titaniumapp.com.

*Linux support is said to be arriving soon.

[via WebResourcesDepot]

Adobe, Beta, Enterprise, Software

Adobe Labs Drops Dreamweaver, Fireworks and Soundbooth CS4 Betas

1 Comment 27 May 2008

Early this morning, the Adobe Labs team released preview versions of three Creative Suite 4 applications: Dreamweaver, Fireworks and Soundbooth.

(Personally, I thought that Adobe might actually phase Fireworks out now that the program is being produced by the same company that releases that other graphics program, Photoshop. Guess I was wrong.)

The official announcement on the Adobe Labs site provides plenty of information on what the new versions bring, including a brand new interface, but does not, however, provide decent screenshots. So, here are some captures from Adobe Dreamweaver CS4: (click on the image for the larger version)

(Dreamweaver CS4 main window)
(CSS options dialog after selecting font…should make for quick and easy CSS maintenance.)

(Adobe Extension Manager CS4)

(Validation Checker)

Some of the notable new features for Dreamweaver include:

Live View - View your web pages under real-world browser conditions with the new Live View in Dreamweaver — while still retaining direct access to the code. The new rendering mode, which uses the open source rendering engine WebKit, displays your designs like a standards-based browser.

Photoshop Smart Objects - Photoshop and Dreamweaver integration has evolved to the next level of compatibility and functionality. Drag and drop an Adobe Photoshop® PSD file into a Dreamweaver page to create an image Smart Object.

Adobe® AIR™ authoring support – Create multiplatform desktop applications from your Dreamweaver HTML and JavaScript sites with new Adobe AIR™ authoring support.

Read more about the new releases over at Adobe Labs. Or, download the betas and give them a spin yourself. (Note: the trial period for beta testers is two measly days. However, if you already own a copy of the respective program [or the CS3 suite], you can test it for a tad longer.)