I would like to create an app for Blackberry, iPhone and Android using Adobe Flex. But I need to access the phone's contacts and I can't seem to find a way to achieve this.
This information is not exposed via AIR for Mobile APIs.
You can't access them on all platforms; and the ones where you can require complicated work arounds.
The next version of AIR should address this. I expect we'll find out more at Adobe Max in October.
Related
Ok, so I have a Flex application developed using Apache FB 4.14 SDK. I got it working and approved on App Store and Play Store. Now my client is looking to port the app on Windows Phone. I tried some googling but all I found is about Astoria project, which is recently dropped by Microsoft. So My question from you folks is what is the best way to port the Flex code for Windows phone with minimal efforts?
Sadly, there is currently no easy path from Flex to Windows Phone.
The road map also states no current plans to add support: http://www.adobe.com/devnet/flashplatform/whitepapers/roadmap.html
You will have to port your game to a different engine. How much work that is, and which engine you should use, depends a lot on the nature of your app.
It also depends on if you want to make a Windows code base just for that platform, or if you want to port to something to have one code base for all mobile platforms
I have made an asp.net application designed to manage and optimize warehouse statistics info. The user had to collect and enter all the info manually so I thought it would be way better to get use of some bar code devices that uses bluetooth for communications to get that info on an automated process.
So I developed an Internet explorer extension that managed the page requests for the bluetooth device and made posts inside a control container with the data.
The fact is that this extension gives me plenty of problems, having to redo the pairing of the devices every now and then as it looses it's functionality after some unknown event. I don't know if it has to do with windows updates or accounts management and rights.
Does anyone knows an alternative, that would be more stable? Perhaps with Java?
Cross-browser would be a plus. In fact I'm headed at mobile devices using android. For the moment, only windows tablets are compatible.
Thanks.
if you are targeting windows tablets, why not using HTML5+Phonegap. This might help.
http://phonegap.com/blog/2012/10/30/announcing-apache-cordova-support-for-windows-phone-8/
I have an old flex web application which now needs to access the camera and gps on a smartphone.
I see there are external libraries to do some of the work for you but what need is native flex support for accessing the phone's GPS and camera from the mobile browser.
The application can be recompiled to any version of flex from 3 to 4.6 if necessary.
To clarify further: The SWF file is embedded in a web page which is then displayed on a tablet/phone (android, ios, etc). I want to be able to read the current GPS coordinates from the hardware GPS and be able to take a picture with the onboard camera.
If this is 100% impossible, I can call a JavaScript function to read the photo and GPS from a third party component, this component would need to be all encompassing as far as mobile devices are and be compatible with the flex externalinterface setup.
Thanks for you help in advance.
Pete
You can pretty much forget about using flash on mobile and desktop for that matter, its a dead end technology now.
Sadly there are very very few mobile devices that will give you browser access to the camera yet. There are a few, but iOS for example has not yet implemented the standard. So you are not going to be able to readily access the camera for at least another year or so. It depends on when Apple, Google and Microsoft get their act together.
As for GPS all the mobile browsers that anyone uses supports the geolocation specification so you can know where the user is.
http://professionalaspnet.com/archive/2012/05/25/A-Study-Using-The-HTML5-Geolocation-API.aspx
I'm evaluating Flex 4.5 for use as a mobile development platform. The demo version of the IDE supports android and promises to support iPhone development in future. There's no mention of Windows Phone 7. Usually, this is the sort of thing that google excels at but in this case, I've come up empty handed. I've found many contradictory reports of Adobe supporting WP7, then not supporting it, then supporting it but not in the initial release.
Has anyone come across any official announcements from Adobe on this? I understand that companies change their priorities and business relationships change so I'm not looking for a crystal ball, I'd just like to see the latest communication from Adobe on this is.
Flex 4.5 can currently be used on Android and iPhone, however WinPhone7 is kind of out of the loop for now. There has been some demos of it shown, but who knows when Microsoft/Adobe will work together to get Flash out on Internet Explorer mobile or get to having Air on WinPhone7.
I know personally that Adobe is aiming for it, but not sure how much of a priority it is since WinPhone7 is still an underdog in this arena. My feeling is that it will come, but not just yet.
Flex/Flash hass not been mentioned on any public timelines for Windows Phone 7.
I think it's safe to assume that you won't see it any time soon.
Ive tried asking on the blackberry forums with no luck... Maybe there are some Blackberry/Adobe experts here...
Im just about to start a project using Adobe AIR/flex for the Blackberry Playbook, I have a few questions:
If I develop an application for the playbook, will the same application be able to run on a desktop? If so will there be any differences?
What is the difference between the desktop and mobile libraries? Can I only access a subset of the SDK on the mobile device compared to the desktop?
Can I create a playbook application that can call methods to a JAVA back end, located on my server?
Thanks
Phil
What’s different about developing a
mobile application versus a web or
desktop application? While many
existing Flex concepts and patterns
carry over directly to mobile
development, developers will need to
take into account the differences in
interaction patterns, screen real
estate, and performance
characteristics of mobile devices
compared to desktop computers. As a
result, we recommend using the new
mobile features in Flex to craft UIs
specific to mobile devices, while
sharing underlying model and data
access code with your desktop or web
application. Additionally, we
recommend certain best practices when
developing mobile applications with
Flex, such as using ActionScript and
FXG rather than MXML for creating item
renderers and skins.
Taken from http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/flex/mobile/faq.html#differences
As per my usual qualifying statement: I haven't tried this. Since this is of some interest to me and I've got a bit of free time I'll give making a hero app and running it as a desktop app versus as a mobile app a shot and post back here once I have it working or find a wall.
The runtime: Adobe AIR 2.5 on mobile
devices The initial versions of the
mobile development features in "Hero"
and "Burrito" are targeted at creating
standalone installed applications
using the Adobe AIR runtime for mobile
devices. By focusing on AIR, Flex can
take full advantage of the integration
AIR provides with each mobile
platform, such as the ability to
handle hardware back and menu buttons
and to access local storage.
Running on AIR Finally, it's important
to realize that in addition to all the
mobile Flex components listed above,
you can also directly take advantage
of all the APIs that are available in
AIR on mobile devices—geolocation,
accelerometer, camera integration, and
so forth. While some of these features
are not exposed as Flex components,
they are easy to access directly using
ActionScript. For more information on
developing using the APIs provided by
AIR on mobile devices, see AIR mobile
docs.
http://www.adobe.com/devnet/flex/articles/mobile_development_hero_burrito.html
Basically it's looking like the answer to all the questions is positive.
Yes and likely yes. (as they re-iterate throughout anything I've found on the topic the controls in Hero were made specifically for touch, taking into consideration the fat finger vs the mouse pointer, my guess is it will render slightly differently on the desktop and it's best to actually develop the UIs separately, although the web-services/model can be combined into a shared library/project)
You should have access to everything provided to the desktop (plus info from GPS/accelerometer etc., but obviously wouldn't get those on desktop), but don't have nearly as good a processor so what will work on the desktop may not on a lower performance computing device, but for low resource consumption tasks this shouldn't be a worry.
Yes this is a core feature of Flex, I don't see how it would be possible to make a (useful) RIA without web services. For confirmation on this one look no further than Adobe TV: http://tv.adobe.com/watch/adc-presents/flex-mobile-part-1-beginning-a-mobile-application/ <-- that app is using a web service (doesn't really matter to Flex what the underlying server technology is so long as it can make HTTP requests against it, RemoteObject/AMFService should serve your purpose)
If I develop an application for the
playbook, will the same application be
able to run on a desktop? If so will
there be any differences?
Depends. the Air file for both desktop and Playbook is exactly the same, however for Playbook development, RIM has provided an Air library so that Flex developers can take advantage of the hardware further than just the normal Air capabilities. With that said, if your application is dependent on that extra library, it will not work on desktop.
What is the difference between the
desktop and mobile libraries? Can I
only access a subset of the SDK on the
mobile device compared to the desktop?
Desktop and mobile libraries? Do you mean the Playbook Air Library or something else? See above for the latter. Comment on this if you can clarify.
Can I create a playbook application
that can call methods to a JAVA back
end, located on my server?
Yes, you can, as long as you have internet connectivity on the Playbook.