Serial port access in Adobe-Air

Question

I am looking to use Adobe Air to visualize information coming from the Serial port. Is there a way to do this naively in Air? I'm assuming not.

If this is the case, would my best route be to create a native application that makes the serial port available via a TCP/IP connection then connect to it locally? or would a different socket type be available?

With this solution, is there a way to bundle a native app with an Air app so that the user would have a 1-step solution?

Answer 1

You can't access the serial port from AIR, but this thread links to a library that claims it will shuttle the data across a socket: http://www.extjs.com/forum/showthread.php?t=36825

You won't be able to bundle the native app with the AIR installer, you would have to bundle the AIR app with the native app. In other words -- write a native app, with a native installer that also installs the AIR app.

Once you've got a native app and an installer, you have to ask yourself what the benefit of using AIR is anymore. Especially now that you have to write a client and server to shuttle data back and forth between the two.

Unless there is some feature in AIR that you absolutely must have, you're probably better off with a cross-platform tool set like Mono or Qt that can handle accessing the serial port. (And if you don't need cross-platform, you've got even more options.)