The Capabilities class provides properties that describe the system and runtime that are hosting the application. For example, a mobile phone's screen might be 100 square pixels, black and white, whereas a PC screen might be 1000 square pixels, color. By using the Capabilities class to determine what capabilities the client has, you can provide appropriate content to as many users as possible. When you know the device's capabilities, you can tell the server to send the appropriate SWF files or tell the SWF file to alter its presentation.

However, some capabilities of Adobe AIR are not listed as properties in the Capabilities class. They are properties of other classes:

There is also a WD server string that specifies whether windowless mode is disabled. Windowless mode can be disabled in Flash Player due to incompatibility with the web browser or to a user setting in the mms.cfg file. There is no corresponding Capabilities property.

All properties of the Capabilities class are read-only.

Static variables

staticread onlyavHardwareDisable:Bool

Specifies whether access to the user's camera and microphone has been administratively prohibited(true) or allowed (false). The server string is AVD.

For content in Adobe AIR™, this property applies only to content in security sandboxes other than the application security sandbox. Content in the application security sandbox can always access the user's camera and microphone.

staticread onlycpuArchitecture:String

Specifies the current CPU architecture. The cpuArchitecture property can return the following strings: "PowerPC", "x86", "SPARC", and "ARM". The server string is ARCH.

staticread onlyhasAccessibility:Bool

Specifies whether the system supports(true) or does not support(false) communication with accessibility aids. The server string is ACC.

staticread onlyhasAudio:Bool

Specifies whether the system has audio capabilities. This property is always true. The server string is A.

staticread onlyhasAudioEncoder:Bool

Specifies whether the system can(true) or cannot (false) encode an audio stream, such as that coming from a microphone. The server string is AE.

staticread onlyhasEmbeddedVideo:Bool

Specifies whether the system supports(true) or does not support(false) embedded video. The server string is EV.

staticread onlyhasIME:Bool

Specifies whether the system does(true) or does not (false) have an input method editor(IME) installed. The server string is IME.

staticread onlyhasMP3:Bool

Specifies whether the system does(true) or does not (false) have an MP3 decoder. The server string is MP3.

staticread onlyhasPrinting:Bool

Specifies whether the system does(true) or does not (false) support printing. The server string is PR.

staticread onlyhasScreenBroadcast:Bool

Specifies whether the system does(true) or does not (false) support the development of screen broadcast applications to be run through Flash Media Server. The server string is SB.

staticread onlyhasScreenPlayback:Bool

Specifies whether the system does(true) or does not (false) support the playback of screen broadcast applications that are being run through Flash Media Server. The server string is SP.

staticread onlyhasStreamingAudio:Bool

Specifies whether the system can(true) or cannot (false) play streaming audio. The server string is SA.

staticread onlyhasStreamingVideo:Bool

Specifies whether the system can(true) or cannot (false) play streaming video. The server string is SV.

staticread onlyhasTLS:Bool

Specifies whether the system supports native SSL sockets through NetConnection(true) or does not(false). The server string is TLS.

staticread onlyhasVideoEncoder:Bool

Specifies whether the system can(true) or cannot (false) encode a video stream, such as that coming from a web camera. The server string is VE.

staticread onlyisDebugger:Bool

Specifies whether the system is a special debugging version (true) or an officially released version (false). The server string is DEB. This property is set to true when running in the debug version of Flash Player or the AIR Debug Launcher(ADL).

staticread onlyisEmbeddedInAcrobat:Bool

Specifies whether the Flash runtime is embedded in a PDF file that is open in Acrobat 9.0 or higher(true) or not(false).

staticread onlywrite onlylanguage:String

Specifies the language code of the system on which the content is running. The language is specified as a lowercase two-letter language code from ISO 639-1. For Chinese, an additional uppercase two-letter country code from ISO 3166 distinguishes between Simplified and Traditional Chinese. The languages codes are based on the English names of the language: for example, hu specifies Hungarian.

On English systems, this property returns only the language code (en), not the country code. On Microsoft Windows systems, this property returns the user interface(UI) language, which refers to the language used for all menus, dialog boxes, error messages, and help files. The following table lists the possible values:

Note: The value of Capabilities.language property is limited to the possible values on this list. Because of this limitation, Adobe AIR applications should use the first element in the Capabilities.languages array to determine the primary user interface language for the system.

The server string is L.

staticread onlylocalFileReadDisable:Bool

Specifies whether read access to the user's hard disk has been administratively prohibited(true) or allowed (false). For content in Adobe AIR, this property applies only to content in security sandboxes other than the application security sandbox.(Content in the application security sandbox can always read from the file system.) If this property is true, Flash Player cannot read files(including the first file that Flash Player launches with) from the user's hard disk. If this property is true, AIR content outside of the application security sandbox cannot read files from the user's hard disk. For example, attempts to read a file on the user's hard disk using load methods will fail if this property is set to true.

Reading runtime shared libraries is also blocked if this property is set to true, but reading local shared objects is allowed without regard to the value of this property.

The server string is LFD.

staticread onlymanufacturer:String

Specifies the manufacturer of the running version of Flash Player or the AIR runtime, in the format "Adobe _OSName_". The value for _OSName_ could be "Windows", "Macintosh", "Linux", or another operating system name. The server string is M.

Do not use Capabilities.manufacturer to determine a capability based on the operating system if a more specific capability property exists. Basing a capability on the operating system is a bad idea, since it can lead to problems if an application does not consider all potential target operating systems. Instead, use the property corresponding to the capability for which you are testing. For more information, see the Capabilities class description.

staticread onlymaxLevelIDC:Int

Retrieves the highest H.264 Level IDC that the client hardware supports. Media run at this level are guaranteed to run; however, media run at the highest level might not run with the highest quality. This property is useful for servers trying to target a client's capabilities. Using this property, a server can determine the level of video to send to the client.

The server string is ML.

staticread onlywrite onlyos:String

Specifies the current operating system. The os property can return the following strings:

The server string is OS.

Do not use Capabilities.os to determine a capability based on the operating system if a more specific capability property exists. Basing a capability on the operating system is a bad idea, since it can lead to problems if an application does not consider all potential target operating systems. Instead, use the property corresponding to the capability for which you are testing. For more information, see the Capabilities class description.

staticread onlywrite onlypixelAspectRatio:Float

Specifies the pixel aspect ratio of the screen. The server string is AR.

staticread onlyplayerType:String

Specifies the type of runtime environment. This property can have one of the following values:

  • "ActiveX" for the Flash Player ActiveX control used by Microsoft Internet Explorer
  • "Desktop" for the Adobe AIR runtime(except for SWF content loaded by an HTML page, which has Capabilities.playerType set to "PlugIn")
  • "External" for the external Flash Player<ph outputclass="flashonly"> or in test mode
  • "PlugIn" for the Flash Player browser plug-in(and for SWF content loaded by an HTML page in an AIR application)
  • "StandAlone" for the stand-alone Flash Player

The server string is PT.

staticread onlyscreenColor:String

Specifies the screen color. This property can have the value "color", "gray"(for grayscale), or "bw"(for black and white). The server string is COL.

staticread onlywrite onlyscreenDPI:Float

Specifies the dots-per-inch(dpi) resolution of the screen, in pixels. The server string is DP.

staticread onlywrite onlyscreenResolutionX:Float

Specifies the maximum horizontal resolution of the screen. The server string is R(which returns both the width and height of the screen). This property does not update with a user's screen resolution and instead only indicates the resolution at the time Flash Player or an Adobe AIR application started. Also, the value only specifies the primary screen.

staticread onlywrite onlyscreenResolutionY:Float

Specifies the maximum vertical resolution of the screen. The server string is R(which returns both the width and height of the screen). This property does not update with a user's screen resolution and instead only indicates the resolution at the time Flash Player or an Adobe AIR application started. Also, the value only specifies the primary screen.

staticread onlyserverString:String

A URL-encoded string that specifies values for each Capabilities property.

The following example shows a URL-encoded string: A=t&SA=t&SV=t&EV=t&MP3=t&AE=t&VE=t&ACC=f&PR=t&SP=t& SB=f&DEB=t&V=WIN%208%2C5%2C0%2C208&M=Adobe%20Windows& R=1600x1200&DP=72&COL=color&AR=1.0&OS=Windows%20XP& L=en&PT=External&AVD=f&LFD=f&WD=f

staticread onlysupports32BitProcesses:Bool

Specifies whether the system supports running 32-bit processes. The server string is PR32.

staticread onlysupports64BitProcesses:Bool

Specifies whether the system supports running 64-bit processes. The server string is PR64.

staticread onlytouchscreenType:TouchscreenType

Specifies the type of touchscreen supported, if any. Values are defined in the flash.system.TouchscreenType class.

staticread onlywrite onlyversion:String

Specifies the Flash Player or Adobe® AIR® platform and version information. The format of the version number is: platform majorVersion,minorVersion,buildNumber,internalBuildNumber. Possible values for platform are "WIN", "MAC", "LNX", and "AND". Here are some examples of version information: WIN 9,0,0,0 // Flash Player 9 for Windows MAC 7,0,25,0 // Flash Player 7 for Macintosh LNX 9,0,115,0 // Flash Player 9 for Linux AND 10,2,150,0 // Flash Player 10 for Android`

Do not use Capabilities.version to determine a capability based on the operating system if a more specific capability property exists. Basing a capability on the operating system is a bad idea, since it can lead to problems if an application does not consider all potential target operating systems. Instead, use the property corresponding to the capability for which you are testing. For more information, see the Capabilities class description.

The server string is V.

Static methods