Developing Android Applications with Adobe AIR [3]
The purpose of this book is to teach you everything you need to know—and more—to develop AIR applications for the Android platform.
Beyond Android, the Adobe Open Screen Project has brought AIR to RIM for BlackBerry, and is committed to bringing it to other partners in the future. For more information on the Open Screen Project, go to http://www.openscreenproject.org/.
The premise of this effort is to offer a uniform tool for a fragmented mobile world. One could hope that AIR will be to mobile development what Flash Player is to the Internet. It enables ease of development and distribution of applications across platforms and browsers.
Installing the Adobe Development Tools
The Adobe development tools come in several forms: Flash Professional CS5.5 and Flash Builder 4.5. They support Android OS 2.2 (named Froyo) and later, as well as devices with an ARMv7 or higher processor. AIR for Android does not work with earlier versions of the Android system.
Flash Professional CS5.5
The latest version of Flash Professional comes with the AIR for Android extension bundled. No separate download or additional installation is needed. When you launch CS5.5 and select File→New, you will see an AIR for Android option under the General tab or an AIR for Android category under Templates.
Flash Builder 4.5
Burrito is the code name for the new version of Flash Builder, in public beta at the time of this writing. You can download Burrito from the Adobe Labs website at http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/flashbuilder_burrito/.
Burrito has templates for Flex Mobile and ActionScript Mobile projects.
Both products, Flash Professional and Flash Builder, include the AIR SDK and tools to automate deployment to devices. We will build our first AIR for Android application in Chapter 2.
Installing the AIR Runtime on an Android Device
The AIR runtime stores the native AS classes which an Android application can reference. It is invoked by your application when it launches. It only needs to be installed on the device once and is shared by all AIR applications.
NOTE
The AIR runtime is the C/C++ implementation of the Flash engine, rendering engine, and virtual machine.
The AIR runtime comes installed on some new Android devices, but not all. As with all applications installed on an Android device, the AIR runtime is packaged as an APK file. If you do not have Adobe AIR yet, search for it in the Android Market application on your device, download it, and install it. You will need it in the next chapter.
Future AIR updates will also be deployed via the Android Market to adapt to Android evolution. For instance, the AIR 2.6 runtime became available in February 2011 to run on Android 2.2 (Froyo), Android 2.3 (Gingerbread), and Android 3.0 (Honeycomb). It provides new features and performance improvements.
Using AIR on Android creates an additional layer on top of the platform, and communicates with it. You do not need to know the inner workings of this process, but being familiar with the Android system may be helpful. Chapter 3 will go over some of that.
What Is in the AIR SDK
The AIR SDK is the set of tools used to package and deploy your AIR application. It comes bundled in the tools, so no additional installation is needed. The tools take care of accessing these files without any development on your part.
The AIR SDK consists of the following:
AIR Developer Tool (ADT)
ADT is a multipurpose tool written in Java. It requires Java 1.5 or later, and is used to package the AIR application for Android devices. It creates a different package based on the target defined: apk for distribution, apk-emulator for the emulator, or apk-debug to debug locally or on the device. ADT creates the self-signed digital code certificate used to sign the application with an option to expand the validity period to conform to Android specifications. It installs, uninstalls, and launches the application on