Google Android Development with Flash Builder - Preparation Guide

This is the third in a series of articles explaining how to set up your development environment to prepare for attending my Adobe MAX preconference hands-on code camp.  The previous articles covered setting up Flash Builder and devices for iOS Application Development and BlackBerry Tablet OS development with Adobe Flash Builder.

In this post, you will learn how to set up Flash Builder and your Google Android device (running Android 2.2 or later) to get ready for development.

1.  The first step is to install Adobe AIR on your device if you have not already done so.  Simply visit the Android Market on your device, search for Adobe AIR, and complete the free install.  Here's a link: https://market.android.com/details?id=com.adobe.air&hl=en

2.  Next, you need to enable USB debugging on your device.  From the Home screen, tap Settings, and then select Applications > Development. Enable the USB debugging option.  If there is an option to stay awake while charging, enable that too.  NOTE:  This cannot be set while your phone is tethered to your computer.  Unplug the mini-usb cable before setting this.

3. If you're running Windows, you'll need to set up a USB device driver for your device.  For more information on this, see Connect Google Android Devices.   Depending on which version of Windows you're running and what Android device you have, the device driver set up can take some time.

This AdobeTV video by Platform Evangelist Bhakti Pingale walks through the setup steps for a Samsung Galaxy Tab: http://tv.adobe.com/watch/adc-presents/mobile-device-debugging-using-usb/.

4.  Plug your phone into your computer and open Adobe Flash Builder 4.5 or later.

5. Choose New > Flex Mobile Project and give your application a name.  Ensure that the defaults are selected as shown below.

6. Click Next and ensure that under Mobile Settings the Google Android checkbox is checked.  If you are only developing for this one platform, deselect the others.   Click the Permissions tab and ensure you have the appropriate permissions selected for each item you want to use.  For example, if your  app needs to use the Internet and access the camera on a Google Android device, you must select the permissions as shown below.

7. If you are building for both Tablet and smart phones, your application will have to be scaled for different screen densities and sizes.  I usually select the Scale Up From 160 dpi checkbox.  Click Finish.

8. Build your application.  If you want to see how easy this is, open the file created under the Views package, switch to Design view, and add a button.  Double-click the button to change the name to something unique (like "Hello Technoracle").  If you are looking for some easy tutorials for mobile application development, please download the course from http://www.22ndcenturyofficial.com/MAX2011/BL3453-ALL.zip

9. Once your application is complete, you may wish to release it to the Google Market.  To do this, you first need to make a proper certificate.  This process is described in this blog post on generating a P12 certificate for the Google Market using the Adobe AIR SDK.

10. When your application is complete, choose File > Export.  In the dialog box that appears, select Flash Builder > Release Build and click Next.

11. Ensure that the correct project is selected in the next screen along with the proper path location at which you wish to place your APK file.  APK files are the install packages for Google Android.  Also ensure that the Signed Packages For Each Platform setting is checked and click Next.

12. A screen will appear asking you for the location of the certificate and password that you created in step 9 above.  Fill these in and click on the deployment header and ensure that Install And Launch Application on Any Connect Devices is checked.  Make sure your Android device is connected and click Finish.

That is it!  Your application will compile into an *.APK file and install itself on your Google Android device.  If your application was built with a simple button it will appear and run as shown below.

Your application can be placed in the Google Market by creating an account and following the instructions at https://market.android.com

Adobe molehill 3D APIs - real 3D!

I've been asked a lot lately about the Molehill project. "Molehill" is an internal Adobe code name for a set of low-level, GPU-accelerated 3D APIs we announced at MAX 2010 (another reason never to miss Adobe MAX)!   The new Molehill APIs enable advanced 3D experiences across screens through the Flash runtimes and allow developers to leverage GPU hardware acceleration for significant performance gains. 


How it works today in Flash Player 10.1


Flash Player 10.1 renders thousands of non z-buffered triangles at approximately 30 Hz.  For true 3D, z-buffering is required.  This refers to the management of image depth coordinates in three-dimensional (3-D) graphics models.  It is very difficult to accomplish in real time due to the immense processing power required.  Unlike X and Y coordinates where there is a physical boundary, Z coordinates can extend infinitely, although the range of human eye perception is somewhat limited.


You can spoof 3D effects today using the Flex attributes "rotationX, rotationY and rotationZ".  Here is a project I made using a simple photo that moves it in 3 axis based on user input.  This is not true 3D however.

The source code for this project:

The Adobe website on Molehill states: "With the new 3D APIs, developers can expect hundreds of thousands of z-buffered triangles to be rendered at HD resolution in full screen at around 60 Hz. Using the new 3D APIs in Flash Player and AIR will make it possible to deliver sophisticated 3D experiences across almost every computer and device connected to the Internet.


The 3D capabilities enabled by the new APIs will also be available to the broader developer community through popular ActionScript® 3D frameworks, such as Alternativa3D, Away3d, Flare3D, Sophie3D or Yogurt3D."


Probably the single best description is from Thibault's video embedded below.  I cannot wait to get my hands on the technology!



http://tv.adobe.com/watch/adc-presents/molehill-3d-apis

Duane's World Episode 28 - Flexico!

OK - This episode of Duane's World took a lot of time to make but it had to be done right. I wanted to capture the real essence of the Mexican Flex developers and show the simplistic beauty of their devotion to Flex. I even tried to convince many of them that they should change the name of Mexico to Flexico. This episode features far too many people to name but it is a must watch. On top of the great interviews and humor, there is a tutorial on Spark graphic primitives in MXML and a great sound track courtesy of my favorite new metal band Entropia! Enjoy!

Open Source Media Framework Webinar Wed June 10

An event not to be missed. In tomorrow's webinar, Lisa Larson-Kelley will dive into the fundamentals of Open Source Media Framework (OSMF), Adobe’s standard video player libraries for building playback experiences and monetizing video on the web. She’ll give you a high-level overview of why you’d want to use OSMF and what it can do, and then dive into its underlying structure and some simple sample code to get you started. This session is for beginner to intermediate programmers and web developers who want to gain a better understanding of OSMF, and how it can simplify media player development.

Lisa is a speaker not to be missed! On top of this, there is a chance to win a copy of CS5!

Register now (I have)
http://www.eventsadobe.com/osmflaunch/invite.html

Using LiveCycle ES2 on the Cloud

This video is a complete tutorial on how to get set up and start developing against LiveCycle ES2 running on the Amazon cloud. If you want to get set up, here are the physical links to reproduce this demo:

1. Download and install the LiveCycle ES2 trial. You will need the libraries in the SDK folder to complete this exercise - https://www.adobe.com/products/eula/livecycle/es/trial/

2. Get access to a cloud account via the Adobe Enterprise Developer Program - http://www.adobe.com/devnet/aedp/dev_exp/.

Here is the video tutorial:



LiveCycle Services Discovery Plug-in for Flash Builder 4 is another component you may wish to download. Tutorials on using this will be forthcoming shortly. With this plug-in you can quickly build Flex and AIR applications that invoke a LiveCycle service through remoting endpoints. You must have an installation of Flash Builder 4 before installing the Modeler.

Flex/AIR Video Tutorial - working with Audio

This tutorial will show you how to build a simple MP3 player in Flex and manipulate an audio stream by coding play, pause and stop buttons. For the source code or project, please email me at dnickull at adobe dot com.

Berlin-Brandenburger SAP Forum

On June 18 I spent the entire day at the Fachhochschule Brandenburg (basically a technical university) with the applied computer science advanced faculty and students. I was hosted by Professor Dr. Robert Franz, Professor Dr. Hartmut Heinrich and Professor Dr. Andreas Johannsen. My talk was on the core patterns of SaaS and SOA as well as the practical implications for software developers and architects. Through code, I demonstrated advanced micro-patterns for Web Service MEPs as well as briefly covering standard service clients like Flex4 for PHP, Web Services, REST (the real REST, not just meaning XML over HTTP) and more.

The students were totally enthusiastic and the faculty has been very knowledgeable in how they view SaaS and especially the architectural model exploring how to use Adobe’s stack to quickly offer SAP systems data using the SaaS model. The SAP speakers also had some great talks on SaaS and it is clear to me that Adobe and SAP need to work more closely together to harness the great power of SAP's enterprise while delivering business intelligence with Adobe's RIA stack.

My white paper on SaaS architecture was published in the official SAP SaaS Wirtschaftsinformatik. The same white paper is also published on the SaaS architectural area of Adobe's website.

I would love to be able to follow this up by coming back to teach a full day (maybe 2 days?) Flex Boot Camp at the University. This would involve a course similar to the one in Vancouver, except updated to reflect the new FB4 and F4, Catalyst work-flows and frameworks.

As I was in Brandenburg, basically a beautiful place, I was reminded of the Dalai Lama's advice - go every year to a place you have never been before. What a great way to live!

The presentation is available at http://www.web2open.org/presentations/Core-SaaS-Patterns_2009_NICKULL.pdf

Flash Summer Camp Berlin!

Flash Summer Camp Berlin is a completely free event organised by Flex Labs, the Berlin Adobe Flex User Group. I will be presenting a two-hour hands-on code camp.

This will be a whole day of experts sharing hands-on coding, presentations, and their knowledge with you. Topics include Flash, Flex and AIR, ColdFusion, Frameworks, Designer Development Workflow, and many more. If you are in Berlin June 14, you might want to come and meet some of the Adobe team and community leaders, as well as network with fellow developers and designers.

Whether you’re just getting started with the Flash Platform, or consider
yourself an expert, there’s something for you!

Ich hoffe auch, dass zu viele Biere mit meinen Freunden in Berlin in einem Biergarten (mit Sonne!)

Bis denn!

Video tutorial - talking to BlazeDS from Flex

This is a simple tutorial you can complete in about 5 minutes once you have the required files. Download the full BlazeDS package from http://www.web2open.org/courses.html (get the Building Service Clients course) and follow along with the video. Written instructions and the source code for this are available from the download.

MAX AIR Boot Camp filling up fast

The talk James Ward and I are delivering on day one of Adobe MAX 2008 is filling up fast. The talk is entitled AIR Boot Camp and will be delivered both in San Francisco and Milan. Curious about AIR? This is the place to go! If you are planning to attend, please register soon, space is limited to only 300 and it is over half gone as of today.

Also - if you are attending, we might get through the content before the time is up (it is a 3 hour mega lab session and all hands on coding). Accordingly, in true community style, James and I would like to ask you to suggest additional topics we can address. So far the outline is as follows; comments are also welcome:

Adobe AIR Boot Camp
Duane Nickull + James Ward
Teachers Aides: Andrew Spaulding (need 2 more).

Audience Assumptions
- This is a 101 Boot camp to introduce people to AIR
who have never used it before or want to go past Hello World.
- Attendees have Adobe’s AIR runtime installed
- Attendees are roughly familiar with XML syntax rules
- Attendees have Flex Builder 3 installed

Description

Join us for an introduction to working with Adobe AIR, in which we will build several projects from start to finish. Projects include "HelloWorld.air," a video player, a "full screen" application, a web service client, a simple example of how to make remote calls, a chromeless window application, writing data to and from a hard disk, working with XML (including RSS feeds), and packaging AIR applications for later distribution. Course materials include the presentation, all code for the projects, and a step-by-step written tutorial.

Topics

An overview of AIR
Architecture
Runtime Architecture
Development environment
Code, Code and more Code!

Projects:

1. Advanced Hello World (learn data binding, compiling, using [Binding], variables, using AS3 and MXML in a project, and much more
2. Chromeless applications - building applications with no system chrome
3. Video Capture and manipulation - use a stream
4. Video playbakc and full screen controls
5. Working with Audio and Events - event handling, audio playback controls
6. HTML - using HTML within an AIR app
7. Reading and writing to the local disk
8. Working with XML - all about E4X, pre-requisite to learn how to manipulate RSS and Web Services call returns.
9. Web Service Introspection and Consumption
10. Exporting, Signing, Distributing and installing AIR applications

Extra projects (we may not get to these if time goes slowly)

11. MySQLite
12. Using NativeWindowing API's

Doug and Ben rock it with SpatialKey

I came across what might be the most efficient Flex mapping application on the web, launched by the Universal Mind geniuses and others like Ben Stucki, Andy Powell and Doug McCune. It's called SpatialKey and the technology preview release just came out. This is a product doing fully client-side heatmap renderings of thousands of data points and can do up to about 100k completely client-side. The architecture uses a hybrid approach and when client side loads exceed the 100K, processing moves to a server to do aggregation.



SpatialKey loads a ton of data into a Flex app and produces sweet visuals that tell a much better story about the data than looking at points on a map. They're only launching the client-side stuff as a "technology preview" while working on an enterprise offering that includes a database product. Potential use cases include deploying to police departments to handle their entire crime databases.

Doug wrote a much more detailed blog article about it here.

OSCON 2008 and New Flex/AIR Course for GeoWeb

James Ward and I are heading down to OSCON today to speak and hang out. OSCON is a great conference but I haven't been in a few years. Looking really forward to it.

Yesterday we delivered a new 3+ hour course on Flex and AIR map based RIA development at GeoWeb 2008 (one of the best conferences in the world!). After completing the writing of the course and giving it once, we really want to offer it up to the community. It takes attendees through 9 projects with lots of coding to demonstrate concepts related to Geo-spatial mashups/RIAs in Flex and AIR.

Directories:

~/AttendeeProjects - the starter projects with the code completed and comments where students have to add code
~/CompleteProjects – the solutions source code
~/TeachersDocument (PDF and DOCX) – the manual for anyone wanting to teach this course. It has a lot of cut and paste code in it to speed up solutions.
~/Presentation (PPT and PDF) - the presentation slides

It is fairly well documented to allow anyone to present but if you find anything missing, please feel free to contribute. If you want the course, contact me at dnickull at adobe dot com. We'll send it out for anyone to use.

UPDATE:  I have uploaded the ZIP file here.  This is not a Flex archive but contains Flex Archives.  Unzip the course first then you can import the project and use the assets.

Duane's World TV - Episode 4 is live!

In this interview, we feature great indy music from Eddy Bugnut (with download links) and talk to Robert Horne, SAP/Business Objects evangelist, about their adoption of Flex and AIR for the front-end to SAP systems on a global scale.

The code and tunes segment works with an associative array (also multidimensional array) and binding it to a Flex chart. The source code will be made available to anyone interested by emailing me at dnickull at adobe dot com.

Enjoy!

AIR 1.1 is out!

Version 1.1 of the Adobe Integrated Runtime (AIR) is now publicly available. Adobe has released a FAQ sheet to bring developers up to speed on what has changed. Here are the main topics:

1. AIR has been translated and can now be localized into ten additional languages (English only for 1.0). The new list of languages now includes Japanese, French, German, Traditional Chinese, Simplified Chinese, Korean, Spanish, Italian, English, Russian, and Brazilian Portuguese. I presume this probably also translates into where the most AIR activity is so if you want your language supported, get active. DISCLAIMER: I am just guessing.

2. Coinciding with the above language support, the AIR APIs and file formats have been updated to enable AIR-based applications to be localized and International keyboard input is now supported. I haven't had time to play around with this yet but will try to get some code samples together in the days to follow.

There is also added support for localizing the name and description attributes in the application descriptor file. This means that the app name etc. will be available in the localized language. Also introduced is support for localizing error messages, such as SQLError.detailID and SQLError.detailArguments, in the SQLite database and the addition of a Capabilities.languages property to obtain an array of preferred UI languages as set by the operating system. Note that the <mx:html> button labels and default menus, such as context menus and the Mac menu bar, have been localized to all supported languages as well. C'est une nouveux dialog en Francais ici!



3. AIR 1.1 is GB18030 certified. GB18030 is the registered Internet name for the official character set of the People's Republic of China (PRC) superseding GB2312. This character set is formally called "Chinese National Standard GB 18030-2005: Information technology -- Chinese coded character set".

4. Security Upgrades. A new certificate migration feature is available that allows developers to migrate their applications between different digital signing certificates. Read the documentation on how this works.

Developers - If you use Flex Builder 3 to build Adobe AIR applications, you will need to manually update the SDK. Instructions on how to perform a manual update are described in the Flex Builder TechNote. You can find out more about Flex 3 and the Adobe AIR 1.1 release on the Adobe Developer Connection site.

While AIR 1.1 is a dot release, it represents a significant step forward in AIR capabilities, and its development required a significant effort from the core AIR team and from teams around the company. The Adobe AIR team deserves a huge round of applause.

Duane's World TV Show Episode 2 out today!

Show two airs today. It features multiple guests and outtakes from my trip to India and also has step-by-step instructions to build a Flex - Yahoo Map using the new AS3 SWC in Code and Tunes. The show's focus is on "Community in Software Development". Hope you enjoy. Please leave any feedback below.

Yes Virginia - Adobe does listen to Slashdot

Today I saw a comment on Slashdot (my all time favorite online community) that made me realize just how far Adobe has come.

“The mere idea of higher ups at a previously assumed Big Evil Company paying attention to discussions on Slashdot (with critiques here often ruthless, multifaceted, and heavily biased towards consumer interests) is pretty shocking, and heartening.

If this signals a major shift in Adobe's operating culture, I think it's cause for celebration.”

http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=539834&cid=23263596

Yes - it is true. In fact, we regularly peruse Slashdot to find out the latest, brutally honest opinions from the hardest to please tech-heads. I doubt we'll ever satisfy everyone but to recap, Adobe is definitely on the right track. PDF to ISO, The ActionScript Virtual Machine (VM behind Flash PLayer) open sourced via SourceForge, the Open Screen Project, The Flex Compiler open source project and BlazeDS are just a few examples of Adobe putting community and developers ahead of corporate greed. So what does this mean?

• Anyone who complains that Acrobat Reader is bloated is free to (try to) write a new PDF reader that works faster.
• Anyone who thinks the Flash Player is too slow is welcome to help.
• Anyone who wants a bug fixed in the Flex SDK can fix it for themselves and others.
• We all get to work together to build a cool technology stack that works for us.

Maybe I sound too much like an optimist or a hype. I do have faith in our company and really love working here. I love the change that is occurring and having a CEO and CTO that understand Slashdot and actually take time to read and take in what is being said.

What's next? Flash on the iPhone? Please already!!!

;-)

Arc90 Lab : The RESTService Flex Library

This just in. The folks at Arc90 Lab have created a Flex REST service AS3 (ActionScript 3) library. I haven't downloaded it yet but be assured I will. You can get it here.

Basement.org states:

"We're also big fans of Adobe's Flash and Flex platforms. Unfortunately, AS3 isn't exactly REST-friendly out of the box. There's some HTTP support, but we needed more robust support for REST. To remedy this, we've built our own AS3 library: RESTService. It's a "class that makes fully aware HTTP service calls. Fault and Result events contain all response headers and status messages, as well as the response body." It even supports HTTPS by leveraging the AS3 Crypto Framework"

Adobe joins SQLite! More Open Source/Standards moves!

As reported at http://opensource.adobe.com, Adobe has joined with Mozilla and Symbian to support the work of the SQLite Consortium to help ensure free, open access and development of SQLite. Adobe uses SQLite within many of its products and recognizes the importance of providing support for technology and tools that are open source because of its value to the entire developer and software communities.

This follows on the heels of a rash of Open Source and Open Standards initiatives by the software company in the last few years. Adobe donated the PDF standard to ISO which is now ISO standard 32000. Adobe has open-sourced the core Flex SDK and Blaze Data Services under various GNU based licenses. It was less than 24 months ago when we also donated core Actionscript Virtual Machine code to the Mozilla Tamarin project. We have also pledged to contribute back to the Webkit HTMl engine project when we work on that code base.

All of this makes me proud to work for a company that understand the importance of the software community.

Flex, AIR teams at Adobe Rock!!!

I have been using the latest build for Flex Builder 3 beta 3 (available for free download here) for my latest set of speaking engagements and personal development. I want to publicly acknowledge that this is by far the greatest version of Flex Builder ever made. The Adobe team responsible for this, including such greats as Matt Chotin, Mike Potter, Luis Polanco, Robert Christensen, Adrian Ludwig, and all the developers have done an outstanding job.

Just making a great product isn't the whole story. The team I work on (Technical Evangelism) is probably the most nit-picky group for any product team to cater to. On top of that, they have around 50 beta testers who are regularly dishing out feature requests, bug reports, and a host of other demands on their minds.

There are hundreds of others who I cannot name here on my blog who have worked on Flex Builder 3. To honor their work, take the Flex Builder 3 public beta 3 for a test drive. If you want a mini-cookbook of Flex and AIR projects, with full source code, please email me (dnickull at adobe dot com) and I'll send it over. It also has a script to show you how to take full advantage of the new features in Flex Builder 3 and the latest AIR 1.0.

eBay Flash/Flex widget contest!

This just in from Mike Potter: eBay is launching a Flash and Flex widget contest where developers can win one of five prizes of $10,000. The details are here.

and:

http://ebay.promotionexpert.com/widget_build_off_contest/

Bits and bytes:
-Contest starts on January 15th, and runs until Feb 22nd.
-Widget must be embeddable on a web page
-Widget must be built using Adobe Flash or Flex
-Widget swf file cannot exceed 200kb
-Widget must use eBay Shopping API only
-Developer’s brand must be within an area no larger than 3,000 square pixels
and at the bottom of the widget
- eBay shall have the right to market and distribute the winning Entries
through the eBay Affiliate Program without additional compensation to
Entrants for such usage.

Get Flex from Adobe labs now. Good luck.