Well I am into trying the Adobe Apollo beta. So cool. Flash or Flex apps on the desktop. Internet apps on the desktop. So so cool!
The Adobe Apollo Runtime Demos
I had fun with the few complete demos in Adobe labs. These are completed Apollo applications. You only need to download the Apollo runtime. Then you can download and install the samples on the same page.
Creating Adobe Apollo Applications
Apollo is an extension of the Actionscript 3/ Flex 2 language. Or said another way, Actionscript 3 and Flex are a subset of the Apollo language since Apollo also allows Javascript and HTML as an application development component. A matter of perspective. But you can see knowing Actionscript 3, Flex 2, HTML, Java are important as they can be part of the Apollo application.
The Adobe Apollo SDK
I had already installed the Flex 2.01 SDK and using it a lot to get a guerrilla warfare (no IDE) experience with Flex and Actionscript 3. Flex has a command compiler (mxml compiler) to generate the swf. You can use it to create Actionscript only UI, Flex only UI or combinations. The language is Actionscript 3.
One task very helpful to this I did recently was to go through every Flex QuickStart example on the Adobe site.
Apollo SDK installs over the Flex 2.01 if you have it installed. It simply extends the Actionscript 3/ Flex 2 language with classes or members to existing classes for the OS UI (like desktop windows) , OS file system (reading and writing to files) and more for OS interfacing.
Adobe Apollo also has a command line compiler (amxml compiler) to generate a swf. Then it has a command line debug launcher (adl or Apollo Debug Launcher) so you can test the application without installing it on your system.
For packaging, there is the (adt Apollo Developer Tool) for packaging into an AIR file. The AIR file is a zip compressed file for installation. Clicking on it with the Apollo run time installed will start the installation of your application.
In general the install was tricky because it needed CLASSPATH and PATH statements updated. I was able to avoid those with just the Flex 2 SDK.
The Adobe Apollo Hello World Application
Since I was focused on command line learning with Flex I found the Create your first Flex-based Apollo application using the Apollo SDK page very helpful.
Adobe Apollo Documentation
The key page I found helpful is Adobe Apollo Documentation. This is not really a documentation page. Rather it is more a index to documentation and pages depending on your needs. You can get to the API documentation from here if that is useful. It has the lower left class window with the Apollo icon for the additional API over and above that used in Flex and Flash apps.
Tip for Windows Batch Files Command Line Processing
In Windows if you are using your own batch files to process the command lines you will find the command window may close before you see Apollo errors. You need to place pause statements in the adl.bat, adt.bat and amxmlc.bat in the Adobe\Flex Builder 2\Flex SDK 2\bin folders.