The Danosphere. » programming

Build iPhone iOS Apps Using Flex Hero and Flash Builder Burrito

Dan — Thu, 24 Feb 2011 04:39:27 +0000

**Editor’s Note: I have a jailbroken iPhone, which makes installing custom IPA files incredibly easy in comparison to those of you still imprisoned by Apple. If you have a legitimate Apple Dev Cert. you should be able to just drag and drop your IPA into iTunes and sync- but I am free of Apple’s chains, so I haven’t tested this and can’t promise you anything.

If you are jailbroken, you have nothing to fear and are ready to rock and roll. For information on jailbreaking iOS 4.2 to make your life easier and your iOS awesomer click here**

Everyone is excited about Adobe’s new Flex Hero SDK, the first Flex SDK to truly enable mobile application development using the Flex framework. And then you read that it only allows you to build native applications for android, and you grimace, and move on. At least that’s what Adobe tells you. I’m here to tell you that with a little know-how, and some command-line fu, you can indeed built Flex mobile applications for the iPhone- right now.

First you’ll need to equip yourself. To complete this you need to download the Flex Hero 4.5 SDK, Flash Builder Burrito, and the Adobe Packager for iPhone.

Download: Flash Builder Burrito Preview Release [includes Flex Hero SDK bundled]

Download: Adobe Package for iPhone Preview 2

This walkthrough is going to be extremely basic. I’ll show you how to get a simple Flex Mobile app onto your iphone, and then it’s up to you to build on these concepts.

Open up Flash Builder Burrito and create a new mobile project, add a simple button to the main application just so you can know that everything is working. Save and exit. Now fire up a command line/terminal. What you need to do now is use the Flex mxmlc command line compiler to create a swf file from you MXML application which is compatible with the Packager for iPhone- Flash Builder Burrito will not do this by default because it uses the AIR2.5 namespace, that’s why you need to use the command line. After you generate a SWF file, you will use the Package for iPhone to create a .IPA file that you can drop onto your phone. Presto changeo- Flex Mobile application on iPhone!

There are a few catches to all of this, so keep reading. To generate IPA iphone application files using Packager for iPhone you need 2 things- an XML application descriptor file, and an Apple Developer Security Certificate.

The first part is easy, create a file – I called mine dl3_mobile-app.xml. This file tells the packager for iPhone a few things, namely stuff about icons, splash screens, and the like. Here is my application descriptor file for reference:

The second problem is the whole Apple Developer certificate issue. The problem is, those cost money- and most likely you just want to see your Flex App running on an iPhone, so why would you spend $100 to see that? Amirite? Right. So check out this nifty walkthrough on how to get a Fake Apple Developer cert so you can keep moving forward with this whole shibang – you may need to create an account to download the necessary files, but it’s free and they won’t spam ya:

How to use Adobe’s iPhone Packager without an Apple Developer Subscription

Ok now we’re set. So now we just need to compile the swf from the command line, and then package it up for iPhone. Here are the 2 commands respectively to accomplish all that:

After the first command is run you should have a SWF file, and after the second one is run [it will take a few minutes to complete, be patient!] you should have an IPA file – this is a native iPhone application! Boomshakalaka!

All done! Now you just need to copy the IPA file to your iPhone and install it! I’ll leave that part to you to figure out, but it’s really easy- just Google it.

That’s it! Shout out to the EverythingFlex Blog for helping me figure this all out.

Remember you technically shouldn’t be able to do this [Flex on iPhone] so don’t be shocked when performance is… subpar. For more helpful links on getting the jump on developing for mobile using Flex Hero, and compiling for iPhone using the Packager for iPhone, checkout these links:

Also checkout more of my SniptBox on Snipt.org.

Flex SandboxMouseEvent – Not All It’s Cracked Up To Be.

Dan — Wed, 23 Feb 2011 17:34:14 +0000

Recently while piddling around in the day-to-day tasks I handle here at DecisionLens I was deep within the List class when I came across something I had never seen before – a SandboxMouseEvent [gasp]. Upon seeing all the wonderous events I could listen to I thought- this is amazing! I can listen for all kinds of stuff happening outside of my sandboxed flash window! So I whipped together a little demo to see what this magical new event could do… [Click Here for Source]:

(Please open the article to see the flash file or player.)

As you can see, not performing as advertised! It seems the only even it captures is MouseUpSomwhere, and that fires when you roll out of the window? Very weird. I thought maybe it was an issue with being trapped in a browser window, so I threw the same code into an AIR application, and same thing- only event fired was MouseUpSomewhere. I don’t know if this is a bug (seems to be since mouseUp isn’t really occuring, its more of a RollOverSomewhere), or I’m just misunderstanding the functionality of this event, but in either case, it was certainly a letdown to see I was still pretty much trapped within my tiny SWF prison.

Using Flex HDividedBox and VDividedBox Cursor Assets Independently

Dan — Fri, 03 Dec 2010 07:11:41 +0000

In a recent project of mine I had the need for a vertical resize cursor. Flex has a very nice vertical resize cursor already packaged along with the VDividedBox. There is a similar horizontal resize cursor for the HDividedBox. After some googling and a little sample project, I found out how to access the cursor assets of these components for independent use without an H or V DividedBox. Simply use the embed from below along with a CursorManager.setCursor() call and you’ve got pretty native horizontal and vertical resize cursors!

Decision Lens’s First Real Infomercial

Dan — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 21:19:01 +0000

The company I work for, Decision Lens, is getting into the social media game [finally, somewhat... ok just a little]. Anyways, we have a youtube channel now, it’s pretty sparse at the moment but if you are a “youtuber” it never hurts to follow the Decision Lens YouTube Channel to keep up to date with our new videos.

In the meantime checkout this vid, it’s a little long but in all fairness it’s pretty hard to describe what the Decision Lens Suite does in a succinct way, it’s a very powerful software platform with a wide range of uses-and the video goes a long way in explaining that. Check it out, for more info visit the Decision Lens website.

Snipt.org Releases API, AIR App, and So Much More

Dan — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 21:31:19 +0000

I’m pleased to announce Snipt.org the twitter-based code sharing service is growing into much more. Today the Snipt.org API was released along with a number of other features including an AIR App, AS3 Library, and Wordpress Plugin (which I’m using on this site!). Hopefully we will see some cool implmentation of the API in the near future (Textmate hint hint). To check out all the goodies head to Extending Snipt.org.

Want to Embed Comedy Central Video? Get Ready to Advertise!

Dan — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 19:14:32 +0000

I was a little surprised when I went to make this post using the comedy central “video embed” and upon previewing my post saw tiny text-link advertisements for other comedy-central programming underneath the embedded video. I did not want this! I only wanted the video!

Direct Embed From Comedy Central:

Code Trimmed to Show JUST the Video:

So I hacked their code [deleted] to get rid of the advertisements which I never asked for to begin with. Want to see the difference between my “pure video” embed and the “advertised embed”. Here is the code comparison:

Pretty lame that they try and get people using the embed to unknowingly run their advertisements.