Tuesday, August 31, 2010

Create AIR App for Android Mobile

The demand for smart phones has been increased rapidly. IPhone is one of my favorite smart phones. I really love it. Unfortunately I can't afford right now.

While surfing for the smart phones on internet, I come across an open source OS developed by Google named Android. Recent version of Android (FROYO) has support for the AIR apps also. After doing some research and surfing, my preference for the IPhone has shifted to Android based phones. The support for the AIR has made me more curious to try out Android OS. Luckily Google has emulator for this. No need to spend lots of money in beginning.

After doing decent research, I had decided to give a try to develop AIR App for Android. I would like to share my experience through this tutorial, which will take you through the creation of Digital Watch AIR application for Android using Adobe Flash professional CS5 and testing it on the Emulator. For this tutorial I will use the Flash professional CS5

Adobe and Google are working together to make this happen for android OS. Hope we don't have memory issue for the Android based mobiles.

To execute this tutorial you will require following things.

  1. Adobe Flash Professional CS5
  2. AIRforAndroid_FlashCS5_ yyyymmdd.zxp
  3. Android SDK – Android Emulator
  4. Runtime_Emulator_Froyo_yyyymmdd.apk

To get the AIRforAndroid_FlashCS5_20100826.zxp, you need to register for the Adobe Prerelease site. After registration, download the AIRforAndroid_FlashCS5_20100826.zxp. To install this .zxp you will require Adobe Extension Manager.

After installing the Air for Android extension, when you open the Flash CS5 you will get the option for creating Flash file for android.


After opening the fla file, Save the fla file with DigitalWatch.fla name.
I have created simple Digital Watch Application using Date and Timer class. For this application, I didn't create any classes. I have coded within the FLA. I know it is not good, But just for this tutorial, I have used my earlier code.

Download FLA from here.

Once you are set with the fla running successfully, without any error. You are ready to deploy that for the Android. Before doing this you need to make some configuration within the AIR Android Settings. To do so, Open File > Air Android Settings… This will open up a window to configure the Application for the Android.

As shown in the above image, the default details for the Application appear as per the fla name. DigitalWatch.apk is the actual package file for the Android. This will be installed in the Android Device / Emulator. I have just made few changes, first for the App name: to Digital Watch and checked the Auto Orientation check boxes. If you notice, within the Include Files there are two files added DigitalWatch.swf and DigitalWatch-app.xml. These are the default files which require packaging the AIR app for android. You can add other files whichever are required for executing your application simply by clicking on the button above that.

In the second Deployment tab you will find some more form items, Similar to AIR package, we have to provide the certificate for the Android package also. If you have any certification already created, Navigate to that file and provide the password. I will create a new certification just to explain. Click on the create button to create a new Certification file for the Air package. This will open another window, just fill all required details and save the file at your desired location. See below image for the details.

After creating the certificate file, you need to add the password for that file in password field of the Development Tab. You need to do some more settings within this tab, Just click on the Release Radio button to create the release build. Also uncheck the two check boxes within the After Publishing area, this can be used when we have actual device connected with USB.

In the Third Icons tab, you have to provide icons of different sizes. Here for this tutorial I am not adding any icon, If you don't add any icons then it will take default android icons for your Air application.

Click on publish button to publish the apk file for your AIR Application, Which will be installed on your Android Device or Emulator. We have completed first step of creating AIR app for Android, Now we need to deploy on the Android Device or Emulator. I am using Emulator for this tutorial, since I am not having any Android Device with 2.2 OS.

Next step is to download the Android SDK and configure your emulator for the testing of your Air app. You can download that from the Adobe prerelease page. Download the android-sdk_r06-windows.zip and Runtime_Emulator_Froyo_20100802.apk for setting emulator. Unzip the android sdk to your system at your desired location. I always prefer to unzip that on c:\sdks\android\ location. Next you have to set the path environment variable for the android sdks like we do for the java. Following are the steps to set the path environment variable on windows.

  1. Right-clicking on the My Computer icon and choose Properties from the menu.
  2. Under the Advanced tab, click the Environment Variables button.
  3. Select the Path entry in the System variables section of the Environment Variables dialog and click Edit.
  4. add the following text at the end of the current value:
    ';C:\SDKs\AIR\bin;C:\SDKs\Android\tools'
  5. Click OK.

Now you have set the environment variable for the Android SDK. You are all set to deploy your application on the android emulator. Next step is to open the emulator and creating the AVD (Android Virtual Device).
Now navigate to the tools folder in the android SDK folder, for my case C:\sdks\android\tools. Once you are on this folder click on the android.bat file to start the AVD manager (Refer Below Image). Once the AVD manager open, you need to install all require packages. To install this, click on the Install Package and click on update all, this will update all required packages for the emulator. For Air application, we will require only 2.2 Froyo platforms.


After updating all packages, Next step is to create the AVD for your emulator. To do so, navigate to the virtual device tab and click on the new button. This will open up a window to set up the virtual device (Refer Below Image). Fill all required details as mentioned in the below image. Make sure you choose the Target as Android 2.2 – API Level 8. You can also set the hardware's as per your requirement, for this tutorial we don't required any specific hardware's, Hence we are keeping it as default. After filling all details click on CreateAVD button to create the new virtual device.


Now you are ready to upload your Air App on your virtual device and test. Select the myAVD from the list and click on the Start button to start the virtual device. This will open up a Launch Option window, Simple click launch to open the virtual device. This will open up the virtual device.


Now you are all set to install your Air application. To install your application on emulator, you need to use command line functions of the android sdk. Open a command window and check whether your android sdk is set properly or not. To test this just type android on your command window, this will open up the AVD manager. If it is set properly, it will open the AVD manager if not, Set the android path environment variable as mention above. Once it is set and running properly, Check whether the device you have created are available to sdk or not, to test this type 'adb devices' this will give you list of devices running.

Now your devices are ready and running, next you have to install Air runtime in the emulator. To install this simply navigate to your folder in command window, where you have store your Air runtime apk file (Runtime_Emulator_.apk) As we are running our App on emulator we have to install Emulator apk. Execute adb -e install -r Runtime_Emulator_Froyo_yyyymmdd.apk command. This will give you success message. That means the Air runtime is installed successfully on your virtual device.

Remember in the above command –e stands for the emulator, when you are installing apk on emulator you have to use –e and when you are installing your apk on actual device you have to ue –d. Also the apk for the device is different than the emulator apk. To install in the apk on your device use Runtime_Device_Froyo_20100802.apk file. The command for installing apk on your device is adb -d install -r Runtime_Device_Froyo_yyyymmdd.apk

Next you can install your application using command line function. Simply navigate to your folder in command window, where you have store your apk file for AIR application. Execute following command adb -e install -r DigitalWatch.apk this will give you a success status as shown in below image. You have installed your Air app in the emulator.


Go to AVD window and check in the menu screen, you will find the digitalwatch icon (Refer below image).

Simple click on the icon, it will run your Digital Watch Air app on the emulator. It runs little slow on the emulator, but I am hoping that on actual device it will run faster.

I hope, this tutorial will help you to try out Air on Android. Your suggestion and queries are welcome; Keep commenting to encourage me to write more blogs.

Download the source and apk from here.


6 comments:

  1. An excellent "how to" article.. Thanks for sharing..

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  2. Thanks for sharing this. Just a quick comment: for the latest AIR release (2010-08-26) you MUST select "device debugging" otherwise the build is not correctly packed. Also it's useful to check both fields to download and execute upon publishing, it works :)

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  3. nice and lucid post on "getting started with Android development using AIR". will be really helpful for neophytes like me

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  4. @jones Thanks Jones, I will definitely give a try for Latest Air release for android.

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  5. I always wanted to develop application for android and this tutorial will definitely help me. nice one!!!Thanks for sharing !!I don't have CS5 so can this be done in flex 4??

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  6. @ROSHAN
    Thanks Roshan for your Valuable comments.

    You can do this using Flex 4, But Flash CS5 has inbuild mechanisum to package the AIR for Android.

    Flex 4 doesn't has inbuild feature to packaging AIR for Anfroid, Hope we will have it soon.

    If you are using Flex 4, Then you have to package AIR using Command Line functions.

    I will soon write a tutorial to compile the AIR package for Android using command line functions.

    ReplyDelete