The ActionScript SDK for BlackBerry AppWorld does not include any published api’s to directly invoke native applications such as BlackBerry AppWorld. There is however a round about way to do so. The navigateToURL() method can be used to launch the web browser. Furthermore the browser intercepts specific app URLs to launching BlackBerry AppWorld instead. So if you wanted to launch AppWorld directly from inside an ActionScript app, all you need to do is to use the navigateToURL() method by pointing it at an AppWorld URL.

The following is an event that is fired following a click to a “Launch AppWorld” button.

public function lauchAppWorld(event:MouseEvent):void
{
navigateToURL(new URLRequest(“http://appworld.blackberry.com/webstore/content/1839”))
}

You can test this approach by simply entering the URL into the browser on your PlayBook. The one downside this course of action has however, is that along the way you will end up launching the browser with a blank window. But until more API’s are available this is at least an approach that works.

Update:

A better approach has been found. In order to go straight to AppWorld you can use navigateToURL() with a link in the format “appworld://content/1839” instead. The below approach is much cleaner and preferred to the work around listed above.

public function lauchAppWorld(event:MouseEvent):void
{
navigateToURL(new URLRequest(“appworld://content/1839”))
}