Fireworks or AIR?

Question

I need to write a desktop application that can run on Mac (Windows and Linux soon) that can get data from MySQL and allow users to transfer files from their desktop to the server.

I know I can write a desktop app in AIR, how would Fireworks play into this?

Can AIR connect to MySQL?

Can one FTP files with AIR?

On a second note, can one write such applications as a ring-tone maker, a disk repair/partitioning utility in AIR? I know AIR uses web technology, but what other thigns are possible?

-Jason

Answer 1

Do you mean Adobe Fireworks? I would use Fireworks for the interface design. It also has some customizable assets.

Here is the product page where they have a lot more info on what it's capable of.

http://www.adobe.com/products/fireworks/features/?view=topnew

Answer 2

An AIR application is a desktop version of a Flash Application. So anything you can do in a Flash Application you can do in an AIR application. Flash Apps work with MySQL so you should be able to get an AIR app to work with MySQL.

AIR apps can also access the local file system. For instance you can write an AIR file loader application.

Answer 3

Fireworks is my design tool of preference. If you are working with digital graphics there is little need to look beyond FW to things like Photoshop and Illustrator. All of the CS5 software intro screens were designed in Fireworks. It has the best 32 bit PNG output I have seen and the colors are dead on without that issue from PS changing its output from the authoring environment.

From experience, I would not recommend spending time with AIR. Web apps are the way to go and the investment in a desktop or even mobile specific device app is going to be tough to justify because of programming maintenance costs, version releases and the speed new technology is released.

Answer 4

You could use Fireworks for the creation of images for the UI ( User Interface ) for most parts its okay enough, if you need advanced shadowing and color options you can look into photoshop, but fireworks is just great for the basic graphical stuff.

Im not sure if you question was maybe related to the UI since fireworks itself should have nothing to do with building the Air application.

You can use different solutions to build your air application, maybe off topic but if you have not decided how to build the AIR app I would look into Adobe Flash Builder 4,5, flex and the AIR development library's. Flex is also great to easily change the user interface (CSS) where you could create the images with fireworks :)