The Oklahoman Desktop Reader is (was?) an application allowing subscribers to read up to a weeks worth of stories from the daily paper via their computer or netbook.

The app started off as a C#.NET project. Early in the development cycle we switched to Adobe AIR for better cross-platform support. (The New York Times made the same switch with their reader app shortly after, but we liked to brag how we were first.) A key goal of the app was to have a liquid layout and text that flowed between columns. The initial version of the app achieved this through some clever off screen rendering and redrawing, but when Adobe released the beta for their new text rendering engine we made the switch. The end result was a very clean text presentation on a baseline grid.

Versions 1.0 – 1.19

  • Features:
  • Authentication
  • Flowing text
  • Liquid layout
  • Pagination
  • Offline caching with SQLite
  • Tech:
  • php
  • mysql
  • sql lite
  • Flex 3.0
  • ActionScript 3.0
  • Other contributors:
  • Jake Behrens: App design and wireframes
  • Billy Maybury: List views and printing
  • Jer Brand: Miscellaneous ActionScript
  • Billy Davis, Jennifer Armstrong: Graphics