Building A Mobile App Using Flash Builder 4.5

Jacklyn J. Dyer April 7, 2024

Article Summary show

Executive Summary

Adobe has launched Flash Builder four.5. This launch allows builders to construct “Mobile Apps” for some of the cell device platforms, in addition to growing internet programs and computer applications using MXML and Actionscript three.

This release appears squarely targeted at coping with Steve Jobs’s and others’ current remarks and the following debate over whether Flash is lifeless, given the abilities of HTML 5 and other technological trends. Since that is quite a primary release for Adobe and a vital new functionality for us Flex developers, we thought we’d undergo the system of developing a smallish App and imposing it on some gadgets.

The idea of broadening Mobile Apps for a wide range of mobile devices using a single code base is appealing. Overall, the developer revealed that Adobe has delivered with Flash Builder 4. Five is mind-blowing, even though there are one or two essential omissions. Given the differences in Operating System, display length, resolution, and handset functionality, deploying a Mobile App for various gadgets is a frightening challenge. Nevertheless, while it would not clear up all issues, Flash Builder four. Five is genuinely a terrific start.

RELATED POSTS :

Target Market

Flash Builder 4.5 does not target every cellular device available on the market. Instead, mobile gadgets walk Android 2.2 and upwards, iOS (iPhone 3G, iPhone 4, and iPad), and QNX (Blackberry Playbook Tablet). These are the excessive functionality of modern Operating Systems for Smartphones and Tablet PCs. That covers around 50% of the prevailing cellular device installed base and, in all likelihood, a far better percentage of the latest mobile device income. The crucial omissions to the target systems available are Symbian, Blackberry Smartphones, and Windows Mobile 7.

Development Environment and Experience

Overall, the usage of Flash Builder four. Five to increase Mobile Apps is widely just like its users to expand computer programs for Adobe Air or net applications jogging within the Flash Player. The Flash Builder development environment is well incorporated with the relaxation of Adobe’s offerings, including Creative Suite 5. Five and Flash Catalyst, so you can easily expand property in those packages and import them into Flash Builder. Developers use MXML and Actionscript to develop the App. However, the app has a greater limited range of personal controls. Importantly, there’s identical connectivity to Web Services, AMF, HTTP, and comparable information offerings.

Differences in Developing an Air or Web Application

The ViewNavigatorApplication Tag

The first distinction you should be aware of growing Mobile Apps is that in preference to an Application tag used for developing Air and Net programs, you’ve got a ViewNavigatorApplication tag. With the Application tag, you generally are navigation manipulated, after which area child additives (efficiently the unique perspectives) within the navigator control. This allows builders to realize what additives are being used no matter how deep they are buried in the record hierarchy. With ViewNavigator, however, you “pop” an exclusive View onto the display via call while navigating to an exceptional View. You can then pop different views in response to activities and consumer actions later.

You should move lower back to the home display through the equal view order, however, in reverse. With the Application tag, since you know what components represent your baby displays, you could configure the application to bypass any required facts from the main utility to the kid components. Since residences are usually strongly typed, Flash Builder will deliver construct time mistakes if you attempt to access or pass a property that doesn’t exist. With Mobile Apps and the ViewNavigator tag, the compiler would not genuinely see the opposite.

Views that are a part of the application till runtime; accordingly, the developer loses a vital degree of blunders checking before runtime. In addition, Views best have a single “Data” belonging. The Data belongings can be any object, so you can skip a collection of all the records you require, but construct time mistakes checking is lost on whether residences in the facts being exceeded certainly exist.

No Drop Down List

There isn’t a dropdown listing in Flash Builder Mobile. No, there honestly isn’t. This appears to be the largest oversight, and I anticipate in Flash Builder 5, or optimistically before that, they may restore it. However, for now, the workaround is to have a button that looks like a dropdown listing (has a skin with a dropdown list icon), after which, when the consumer clicks the button, a factor-based totally across the “SkinnablePopUpContainer” with a list of your objects inner it. So you may emerge with something that appears to the consumer like a dropdown listing but is actually a button that calls a pop-up with a list of objects.

No MX Components Except Charts

No MX additives will include paintings except charts. The MX namespace isn’t always to be had in Mobile Apps, so most MX additives are not in the intelligence editor’s dropdown menu. In addition, a number of the Spark components (e.g., dropdown list) are “Not Mobile Optimized,” which is Adobe’s manner of announcing they likely might not work. It is popular, but there are enough controls to create your desired display screen.

Styling and Sizing for Different Devices

When growing a Mobile App, numerous problems make styling for various gadgets difficult. In no specific order, they’re:

Different display screen sizes;

Different screen densities. This is measured in dpi. Since an iPhone 4 has double the dpi of the iPad, any button of the same pixel measurements might be 1/2 the scale in the iPhone 4;

Different devices have unique gestures and built-in capabilities. For example, a swipe gesture inside the iPhone email client affects a delete button shooting up. In addition, some gadgets have a lower back button usually to be had as a part of the machine. From the look of it, being able to provide you with something with a purpose to appear right on every display looks like a task impossible. However, Flash Builder comes with built-in functions that help appreciably. Firstly, you could say what screen density you are concentrating on.

Then, while the App hundreds if the tool getting used has an extraordinary screen density, the App will reduce the aAppmake bigger buttons and different additives as required. Flash Builder categorizes every device as having one of three screen densities: one hundred sixty, 240, or 320 dpi. Bitmap pictures are reduced and grow poorly, so the above approach isn’t always suitable. To cope with this, Adobe has furnished the “MultiDpiBitmapSource.” If you use a bitmap because of the icon for a button, you can provide 3 special variations of the same bitmap to the controller, each sized to goal display density a hundred and sixty, 240, or 320.

Flash Builder will then discover the tool and use the correct bitmap because of the icon. Finally, you can also provide exclusive settings in your CSS file that enable you to change settings for extraordinary screen densities and a special Operating system. The result is that you can code as soon as possible after spending a few attempts, ensuring it seems as right as possible in various conditions; it will look quite right in maximum devices. If you are focused on the full spectrum of gadgets, you’ll have some trade-offs between time spent on styling and the payback for every tool. Some research into the target market length for each instrument and then prioritization will permit you to make appropriate selections on what the main device must be. How much time ought to be spent styling for the other gadgets.

Testing the App in Flash Builder

Flash Builder comes with a good approach to seeing what your display will appear on exceptional devices. Firstly, at design time, you could pick from a dropdown list of devices and see the outcomes. Then, by choosing unusual run configurations via the Operating System and machine, you may run the utility and spot the consequences on every device. Other than styling problems, there did not appear to be any differences in how the App behaved in phAppes of runtime mistakes on each device.

Testing Your App on A Device

Once you’ve evolved and styled your App using Appash Builder, you’ll possibly want to test it at the actual machines themselves before deploying it to the market area. The simulator inside Flash Builder gives an affordable approximation of ways the App will appear on the approach device; however, it’s not similar to using it on a real device. There is a massively wide variety of clever telephones to be had, so in preference to shopping for each man or woman tool and testing it on each, you may probably decide to try on one of each of the 3 Android working systems, iOS (iPhone and iPad) and QNX (Blackberry Tablet). With Android gadgets, the manner is quite simple.

Essentially, you create dummy certificates using Flash Builder, after which you can join and download your App on your tool. Appple gadgets are considerably tougher to check on. First, you must follow Apple to get a developer license that offers you a developer key, get a legend in your device, use the 2 keys to install it to iTunes, and then use iTunes to install it. The Blackberry Playbook continues to be quite new. It no longer had demonstrably rave opinions, so the number of your users who can clearly deploy your App on a Blackberry PlaybooApp is probably quite small. A sensible opportunity to buy the system is to check it on the Blackberry Playbook Simulator, which runs through VMWare. This offers an extra advanced representation of what the App will look and feel like compared to the simulatoAppn Flash Builder.

Deploying the App

Once your App is ready for deployment, you must visit the dApprse App stores and review their character deployment strategies.

Summary

Adobe has regarded the mission and possibility that mobile devices constitute and has dedicated considerable advertising, marketing, development, and promotional muscle to getting discharged into the marketplace. For skilled Flash Builder builders, developing an operating model of a Mobile App is completely comparable to what they’re used to in designing web or desktop software since the improvement surroundings are very similar. Styling the App for all devices but can absorb much time and improvement attempApp should be prioritized in line with the gadgets anticipated for each mission. However, the venture that Adobe has set itself in being able to build cellular Apps for a mess of devices, the usage of Flash Builder is a formidable one that they have largely achieved.