Mozilla Prism Vs. Adobe Air Development: Two Alternatives For Flex Experts To Build Desktop Appli

By Author: Inessa Bokhan
Total Articles: 3
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Is it possible that Flex developers may use their Web programming skills to create desktop applications? Such a question would have aroused amusement just a couple of years ago, since Web and Desktop application development originally required varying skills and different programming techniques. However, things have changed so far, after Mozilla Prism and Adobe AIR development were introduced, making it possible for AJAX and Flex developers to build desktop apps without leaving their Web expertise behind.

The thing is that AIR and Prism were actually designed to accomplish the same goal, but in rather different ways. Adobe AIR development implies working with a cross-platform runtime environment (AIR) that allows existing Flash, ActionScript, HTML, or JavaScript code to be utilized to create desktop applications, so that both desktop and Web versions of the application can be built separately from the same source code. Although AIR requires its runtime to be installed for applications to run, many computers should have it already, considering that ...
... the runtime is included into the distribution of Adobe Flash.

Mozilla Prism, on the other hand, is a site-specific browser that works exclusively with a single Web application, allowing it to run on the desktop. Unlike Adobe AIR development, Prism cannot be utilized to build applications that run locally, but rather provides a desktop interface for an existing Web application. It does not take anything more than Flash player for Prism to run Flex applications, and most computers are likely to have it installed.

However, the question is why would a Flex development expert prefer to build a desktop application in addition to its Web version, either by means of Adobe AIR development or Mozilla Prism?

Below is the list of the most significant reasons:

Relying on local resources instead of addressing a remote server for every operation typically enables desktop applications to run considerably faster than their Web counterparts.

No matter what technology is involved, whether it is Adobe AIR development or Mozilla Prism deployment, one can benefit from the reduced bandwidth consumption that even a Web-active desktop application provides by running locally, not on a remote server.

In case a browser crashes due to an error caused by one of the sites in other tabs, the application's performance will not be affected.

Running in a browser sandbox means greatly restricted access to a local file system and limited cross-domain support. Reasonable as these restrictions may be in terms of security, they can still be a hindrance to even the most well-intentioned Flex developer. By means of contrast, a desktop application is entirely devoid of such limitations.

Being able to employ a single technology to build both Web and desktop applications means less development time, saved effort, and no necessity to master other technologies and languages.

With Adobe AIR development, a programmer can use Flex Builder to design AIR applications from an existing Flex code base, stripping it of Web-specific functionality and adding desktop elements. At the same time, they can include the whole common code in another project and implement it for creating both Web and desktop applications.

Building desktop applications with Mozilla Prism is even more genuine. In order to create an application, one needs to install Prism and then indicate the URL of the application one wants to bring to the desktop. The thing one cannot but mention is that unlike using Adobe AIR development, Prism does not have functionality to reach beyond the scope of a browser sandbox: one can only create a desktop shell for a Web application. In spite of the announced bunch of fascinating features that would provide smooth Web-to-desktop transition (support for offline data storage and access to 3D graphics hardware resources), they are yet to be implemented.

What is it about Prism, then, that makes it matter? For many, it is the unparalleled simplicity—even more simple than Adobe AIR development. You just bring your application to the desktop with a few clicks—without code modifications or additional coding. After that, the resulting application can be run on any computer with no additional runtimes to be installed. For Flex applications, only Flash player is needed.

That is why those Flex programmers who pay much attention to optimized performance and offline capabilities may still be involved into Adobe AIR development. And those who need simplified and prompt desktop application development should give Mozilla Prism a try.

Either way, for IT executives, the two technologies mean software vendors can have the same development team do what would otherwise take two teams to achieve.