Digital Dictionary with Adobe AIR
I am using Adobe AIR since beta testing process. For me AIR is midpoint of desktop and web programming, which is one of the basic idea of Adobe AIR. I want to use soon as AIR 1.0 released and last week give it my first official AIR application to one of the software company’s that I am working with.
Digital Dictionary
We design a dictionary (Metallurgy Technical Terms Dictionary) application with AIR, the offer came to me at the first week of march. Same week I designed the working system and functionality. It is a Turkish-English Technical Terms Dictionary which has more than 98.000 terms and 125.000 explanations. Each explanation has it own field, formulas, signs some other explanation part. Of course the numbers of terms are total number of both languages. I use is SQLLite database system which is with all data is 6.34 MB.
The Dictionary has a live searching feature. When a user starts to type a term number of matching terms come up automatically, and this is a great feature of dictionary.
As the dictionary is working in 2 languages, user can search in selected language or in both of languages. But instead of classic system I used radio buttons for this 3 option (Turkish, English, Both) and its working with live searching option. When the user types a word different terms appear in English in Turkish or in both languages with out typing again but only clicking one of the radio buttons. And performance is extra ordinary as you can type a term and term might have 3000 result it’s getting all those terms in and starting to view less than a second.
When I planed the dictionary first time I design it to work with integrated web server. The idea was; having a management panel for dictionary and if there is any update or if there are any new words which would be added dictionary could receive that automatically and would have any problem of not being updated. Of course our costumer didn’t want that feature so I have to cancel that part.
Technologies which been use; AIR, Actionscript 3.0, SQLLite, Flash CS3
Why AIR?
First of all it is working without problem in different operating system. There might be several platforms which can do that but I think it is really flexible and works perfectly as integrated. Second reason is the SQLLite database support. For us it was amazing because we could move big amount of data to some platform like AIR with out any problem. Also as I mentioned above the SQLLite file is 6.34 MB and swf file is 286 KB. And I am really happy to see working that fast.
I hope Turkish developers will start to work more on AIR projects.
Take Care
Engin
