Use the source, Luke… even for HTML pages!
These days I’m experimenting with a few desktop clients to read/update status messages from/to some socail networks I participate and I want to be involved more from now on. But there is a small catch!
Most desktop clients nowadays are being built using Adobe’s AIR. So, at first, I downloaded and installed the AIR package for Linux and all went well.
After that, I had to visit each client’s homepage to install the client. In order to make things easier for the end user to complete the installation, there is an automated procedure through the webpage. The only problem is that this procedure fails to accept the fact that I have already installed AIR and doesn’t let me proceed with the download/installation.
So, what can a poor developer/user do in such a situation?
Simple… “use the source, Luke!” and look at the HTML code of the webpage and try to find the link reference to the “.air” file, then download it manually and continue the installation from the command line using AIR’s “Adobe AIR Application Installer” (located at /usr/bin directory).
From Firefox, while viewing the desktop client’s webpage, press Ctrl+U to view the source, search for “.air” (without the quotes) and copy to clipboard the URL in the ‘a href=’ clause. Paste the copied URL into the location bar and save the file to your hard disk. Then run
Adobe AIR Application Installer
and guide it to the just-downloaded file to start the installation.
As usual, “the devil is in the details”, right? 🙂
Visit The Light of the LAMP blog for more…
Anonymous are discussing. 
You might want to give Firebug a shot as well (getfirebug.com).