Adventures of a Flex developer

On a lot of new/geek new websites I read a lot about android fragmentation.  Some people suggesting it is a bit problem?


My Bottle Rocket Dash game has been live on the android market for less than 48 hours although I pleasantly surprised to see it had been downloaded over 400 times.  Although only just over half are active installs. (I’ll just hope they plan on reinstalling it).


Any how I found the graphs that the android market creates quite interesting.  Weirdly no devices appear to have an android version of less than of 2.2. Admittedly this is no way near the amount of data to draw any conclusions from.   But I thought I would share it:

Finally got round to finishing my first Android Adobe Air game.  You can download a free and paid version from the marketplace:

https://market.android.com/details?id=air.com.indecentmonkey.BottleRocketDash
















https://market.android.com/details?id=air.com.indecentmonkey.BottleRocketDashFree

Got my egg timer application approved for the playbook.  Which also means i quality for a free blackberry playbook.  Can't wait for it to arrive

I was trying to submit my app for the blackberry playbook, however the release build feature in Flash builder burrito appears to be broken. I was shown the following error: “Error: The system cannot find the path specified”

Luckly you can compile the application from the command line. This took me a while to figure out so I thought I would post it up to share and hopefully save someone else the time.

C:\Users\Mark\Adobe Flash Builder Burrito Preview\Egg Timer Air\src>"C:\Program Files (x86)\Adobe\Adobe Flash Builder Burrito\sdks\blackberry-tablet-sdk-0.9.3\bin\blackberry-airpackager" -package Main.bar Main-app.xml Main.swf blackberry-tablet.xml blackberry-tablet-icon.png assets


You can test your newly created compiled app with the following command:

"C:\Program Files (x86)\Adobe\Adobe Flash Builder Burrito\sdks\blackberry-tablet-sdk-0.9.3\bin\blackberry-deploy" -installApp -launchApp -package C:\Users\Mark\Adobe Flash Builder Burrito Preview\Egg Timer Air\src \Main.bar -device 192.168.1.123 -password "password"

You will need to fill in your own ip of the playbook simulator and development password. Also worth a not those paths are from my x64 windows. You can drop the (x86) bit if you’re on 32bit

If you have been using Flash Builder burrito you may have noticed that currently there is no support for the native menu system available to Java Android apps. I expect this is something that will be included in the final release of the up coming Flash Builder.

I have created a temporarily work around which seems to work quite nicely until an update is available. You must listen manually for the Menu hardware key press in your app.

 <s:MobileApplication   
      xmlns:fx="http://ns.adobe.com/mxml/2009"   
      xmlns:s="library://ns.adobe.com/flex/spark"  
      applicationComplete="init()">            
      <fx:Script>  
           <![CDATA[  
                protected function init():void {  
                     NativeApplication.nativeApplication.addEventListener(KeyboardEvent.KEY_DOWN, keyDown);  
                }  
                private function keyDown(e:KeyboardEvent):void {  
                     if(e.keyCode == Keyboard.MENU) {  
                          trace("Handle Menu button"); 
                     }  
                }                 
           ]]>  
      </fx:Script>  
 </s:MobileApplication>  

Once you have received your menu event you can handle it however you like. I have created a gingerbread styled menu which you can use in your own apps. See below:

You can view a normal Flash example here where the source code is available here or view the context menu

I've finished and uploaded my first Adobe Air Android app, you can find it here: https://market.android.com/details?id=air.com.indecentmonkey.eggtimerair