Developing Android Applications with Adobe AIR [102]
This chapter does not discuss all the code for this project. Instead, it highlights some specific points of interest. Every API used in this application was covered in the book and should be easy to follow. Refer to the code comments for additional information.
NOTE
The Album application does not exist in the Android Market, nor is it meant for public consumption. It was developed for the sole purpose of demonstration and is not of production quality.
Design
The design is simple, using primary colors and crisp type. The project was not developed for flexible layout. It was created at 800×480 resolution with auto-orientation turned off; you can use it as a base from which to experiment developing for other resolutions. The art is provided in a Flash movie to use in Flash Professional or as an .swc file to import into Flash Builder by selecting Properties→ActionScript Build Path→Library Path and clicking on “Add swc.”
Architecture
The source code consists of the Main document class and the model, view, and events packages (see Figure 17-1).
The model package contains the AudioManager, the SQLManager, the GeoService, and the PeerService. The view package contains the NavigationManager and the various views. The events package contains the various custom events.
The SQLManager class is static, so it can be accessed from anywhere in the application without instantiation. The other model classes are passed by reference.
Figure 17-1. Packages and classes for the Album application
Flow
The flow of the application is straightforward. The user goes through a series of simple tasks, one step at a time. In the opening screen, the OpeningView, the user can select a new picture or go to the group menu of images, as shown in Figure 17-2.
Figure 17-2. The OpeningView
From the AddView page, the user can open the Media Gallery or launch the camera, as shown in Figure 17-3. Both choices go to the same CameraView view. An id parameter is passed to the new view to determine the mode.
Figure 17-3. The AddView, native camera application, and Media Gallery
The image data received from either of the sources is resized to fit the dimensions of the stage. The user can take another picture or accept the current photograph if satisfied. The image url is sent to the SQLManager to store in its class variable currentPhoto of type Object, and the application goes to the CaptionView.
In the CaptionView, the user can skip the caption-recording step or launch the AudioManager. The recording is limited to four seconds and automatically plays the caption sound back. The user can record again or choose to keep the audio. The AudioManager compresses the recording as a WAV file and saves it on the SD card. Its url is saved in the SQLManager’s currentPhoto object. The next step is to add geographic information.
In the GeoView, the user can skip or launch the GeoService. This service creates an instance of the GeoLocation, fetches coordinates, and then requests the corresponding city and country from the Yahoo! API. As in the previous steps, the geodata is saved in the SQLManager’s currentPhoto object. These three steps are shown in Figure 17-4.
Figure 17-4. The CameraView, CaptionView, and GeoView
In the SavingView mode, data saving can be skipped or the data can be saved. For the latter, the SQLManager opens an SQL connection and saves the data, then closes the connection. The application goes back to the OpeningView.
Back at our starting point, another navigation choice is the Group menu. The MenuView page requests the number of images saved for the SQLManager and displays it as a list of items. If the list height is taller than the screen, it becomes scrollable. Selecting one of the items takes the user to the PhotoView screen. The SavingView page and MenuView page are shown in Figure 17-5.
The PhotoView displays the image selected in the MenuView. Choosing to connect calls the PeerService to set up a P2P connection using the WiFi network. Once it