Programming Flex 3

Distributing AIR Applications

Distributing AIR applications involves the following basic aspects:

• Creating .air files

• Allowing users to install the application

In the following sections, we’ll look at each of these topics in more detail.

Creating Installers

AIR application installers are .air files, which contain all the files necessary to run the AIR application. All installers must be digitally signed, which ensures the integrity of the installation file (meaning a user will know the installation file has not been altered since it was published). You can digitally sign an installer using a certificate. Certificates can be of two types: a self-signed certificate or a certificate from a certificate authority (CA) such as VeriSign. When you sign an installer using a self-signed certificate, the installer will display the publisher as unknown. But, if you use a certificate from a CA, the installer will display the identity of the publisher contained in the certificate.

If you want to use a certificate from a CA, you must purchase the certificate. If you want to use a self-signed certificate, you can create the certificate yourself using the Flex SDK, which we’ll look at in the following section.

Creating a self-signed certificate

You can create a self-signed certificate using the Flex SDK. If you are using Flex Builder, you can create a certificate while exporting the installer using the Create Self-Signed Digital Certificate dialog described in the following section. Otherwise, if you’re ...