Ive gotten a couple of questions lately from people asking what resources I use to learn Cocoa. I figured I would make a quick post, and list them:

Cocoa Programming for Mac(R) OS X (3rd Edition) - Aaron Hillegass

This is probably the best single resource if you want to just jump in and get started. It covers enough of the basics of Objective-C to get your going.

Programming in Objective-C - Stephen Kochan

The title pretty much sums it up. Have you run into any new issues in Adobe AIR 1.5? Specifically, I am looking for anything that may have worked in AIR 1.1, which no longer works in AIR 1.5.

For example:

SHIFT + SPACE doesn’t work correctly in AIR 1.5, but worked fine in AIR 1.1. (Bug #1932338).

Just post the info in the comments (including OS info), and please leave your email address in case the team needs to get in touch with you for more information. Please keep comments on topic.

Unlike on Windows, the convention on Mac is that when the main application Window is closed, the application does not exit (although there are exception to this). If you are working on a Document based application, the functionality to open a new window is built in (just open a new document), however for a non-Document based Cocoa application, you have to implement this functionality yourself, which is pretty simple. First, you have to tell the window (NSWindow) to only hide itself when it is closed, and not also release itself.

I have just upload a new Mac / Cocoa app I have been working on called ShortBoard. It is a simple app that loads shortwave broadcasts schedules from Prime Time Shortwave, and makes it easy to view, sort and filter them.

This is just a first release, and I am planning to continue to play around with it and add features (im using it to learn Cocoa).

You can find more information, as well as download the app from here.

We have just posted an updated PDF of the Flash Platform ActionScript 3 RIA API Guide. The new guide includes updated apis for Adobe AIR 1.5, Flex 3.2 and Flash Player 10.

You can find more information on the guide, as well as download the PDF from the developer center.

You can view some images of the previous guide here.

We also have printed versions of the guide. If you are MAX, you can find one in your goodie bag. If you are not at max, I will be sending some guides and new eboy sticker sheets next week. Watch my twitter account for more info on how to get one.

We just released Adobe AIR 1.5. While this is a point release, it is a pretty significant update. You can find an overview of new features and updates in this article on the developer center, and in this blog post.

What is my favorite feature of AIR 1.5? Bug fixes! In particular URL clicks are now handled correctly (correct browser is opened, and links open in new tab in Firefox as appropriate).

You can grab the latest version here, or you will be prompted to update it the next time you run an AIR application.

We will have some out each day at the Adobe booth at MAX.

fyi, I am going to mail some of these out next week (along with updated AS3 RIA Guides). Ill post more info next week on my twitter account.

If you are working on an AIR app, and will be attending MAX 2008 this week, make sure to stop by the booth to show us your app. We have a station setup called “Developer Spotlight” where you can come and show your app to AIR Team members and evangelists (as well as ask any questions you might have).

Anyone who comes by and shows us their app will get either a new ColdFusion or AIR tshirt (both created by eboy).

One of the top feature requests that end users have been asking for from AIR applications (on Mac) is the ability for those applications to leverage the open source Growl notification framework on Mac. However, this was not previously possible due to how applications are required to communicate with Growl.

I am really excited to announce that Adobe has been working with the Growl team to add support to Growl for Adobe AIR and Flash applications. Among other things, this will enable Adobe AIR applications to leverage the Growl notification framework on Mac. The best part, is that it is implemented in a way that is not just limited to use by Flash and AIR.

I have just posted a new build and zip file of the ActionScript 3 CoreLib Library (as3corelib). This in an open source library that contains a number of classes and utilities for working with ActionScript 3.

This is release .92 and includes a number of bug and performance fixes, as well as some new functionality.

One thing to note is that we have added support for some AIR specific classes. Anything in the com.adobe.air package will only run within Adobe AIR. I am looking to do the same for Flex classes, which would make it much easier to determine which classes work where. The majority of the classes do not require Flex or AIR.