AndroidTO

Developing for Mobile
with the Flex FrameworkBy Matthew Fabb

How many designers out there? How many developers? How many Flex developers? Developers familiar with Flex 4?

Who Am I?

Im a Flash/Flex developer that has been doing Flash work from the tail-end of Flash 4 and the beginning of Flash 5

I am currently a developer
at StickerYou

I was a technical editor on Wroxs
Professional Flex 3Authored by:
Joseph Balderson, Andrew Trice,
Peter Ent, Joe Berkovitz, Tom Sugden,
Todd Prekaski, David Hassoun,
and Jun Heider.

http://www.mathewfabb.comcontactme@matthewfabb.com@mattthewfabb

Flash & AIR - Reach

System Requirements for AIR

AndroidAndroid 2.2+

ARMv7 processorVector FPU (Floating Point Units)

Minimum 550MHz

OpenGL ES 2.0

H.264 and AAC HW decoders

256MB of RAM

iOSiOS 4+

iPhone 3GS+

iPad 1+

New in Adobe AIR 3

AIR Native Extensions (ANE)Native code can be combined with an AIR app

Allows an AIR app to access any API

ANE file is compiled separately then compiled into an AIR app

Adobe has a growing list of examples

Native components can be used,
but there are some limitations
to graphics

New in Adobe AIR 3

AIR Native Extensions (ANE)ANE can be bundled into the hardware

Flash Builder 4.6 will have
built in ANE supportFlash Builder 4.6 will be a free
update to users of Flash Builder 4.5

Will be out before the end of the year

New in Adobe AIR 3

Captive RuntimeThis means an AIR runtime can be packaged inside of an AIR app

An AIR APK file can be installed like a native
Android app without AIR installed

EXE files can be made for WindowsAIR apps can run without being installedRun off an USB or DVD/CD

DMG files can be made for MacAIR apps can now be added to the
Apple Mac Store

New in AIR 3

StageTextNative text input

Get to use the native
auto-correct & auto-capitalize
functionality

Will be used in the
Flex TextInput component

The Future of AIR

Adobe continues to heavily invest in AIR

Adobe is releasing Flash & AIR on a quarterly schedule

AIR 3.1 scheduled for release before the end of 2011

Adobe has an Incubator builds of Flash Player, which they expect to move up to monthly, weekly & ultimately daily builds

Photoshop Touch was
built in Adobe AIR using
native extensions

What is Flex?

Flex is an Adobe open source framework to create Flash applications

MXML, an XML-based mark up language is used to layout the interface of the application

ActionScript is used with the MXML for interactivity

CSS can be used to style the application

MXML, ActionScript & CSS is very
similar to HTML, JavaScript & CSS

MXML, CSS & ActionScript is compiled
into generated ActionScript which is then
compiled into a SWF file

What is Flex?

The Flex compiler is free & open source

Developers can create Flex applications via:Adobe Flash Builder

3rd party tools such as FlashDevelop or FDT

Any text editor & the Flex compiler

Flex 4.5

Flex 4.5 was built to target mobile

Flex 4.6 will be out by the end of 2011 with more mobile components & increases in performance

Tour Du Flex mobile

Supports hardware keys

Orientation support

Provides API to save data between application sessions & interruptions (such as phone calls)

Has 2 methods of dealing with multiple DPIs/PPIs on different devices

Mobile Application

supports hardware keyscurrently only back button, but looks like support for menu button is coming in a later releaseorientation supportkeeps track of the device orientation as a Flex stateyou can create a UI that changes with orientation or you can give it a completely different viewprovides API to save data between application sessions & phone callsnote the data that is saved is not
encrypted best not use this for any
sensitive data, unless you add your own
encryption

1024x600170 DPI854x480
240 DPI

800x480
240 DPI

480x320160 DPI960x640326 DPI1024x768120 DPI

Dealing with multiple DPIs

In dealing with different PPI/DPI's, Flex divides it into 3 sections:160 dpi< 200

240 dpi>= 200

< 280

320 dpi