44 | Chapter 3: Working with JavaScript and HTML Within AIR
• CSS
• XHTML
- W3C DOM Level 2 support
Essentially, Adobe AIR has a full HTML rendering engine,
and includes support for of the same technologies that can be
used when developing web applications and content target-
ing the web browser. Developers can build full-featured AIR
applications that leverage these technologies.
TIP
You can find more information on the WebKit project at:
http://www.webkit.org.Why WebKit?
Adobe spent a considerable amount of time researching
which HTML engine to use within Adobe AIR and used a
number of criteria that ultimately led them to settle on
WebKit.
Open project
Adobe knew from the very beginning that it did not want to
create and maintain its own HTML rendering engine. Not
only would this be an immense amount of work, but it
would also make it difficult for developers, who would then
have to become familiar with all of the quirks of yet another
HTML engine.
WebKit provides Adobe AIR with a full-featured HTML
engine that is under continuous development by a robust
development community that includes individual developers
as well as large companies such as Nokia and Apple. This
allows Adobe to focus on bug fixes and features, and also
means that Adobe can actively contribute back to WebKit,
while also taking advantage of the contributions made by
other members of the WebKit project.