Anyone with Android App development experience? I have some questions :D

EDIT: I found info and answered my questions, check post Nº 4.

Hello!

If there is anyone that has some experience programming Android apps, I would be very glad if you could answer some questions !

The thing is: I'm currently studying programming, right now starting with ActionScript using Flash Builder 4.6 or 4.7, I had a very good idea for a simple project that I wanted to make for Android, I heard that with AIR you can somehow make Flash work with Android, but I'm not sure how or if it works.

Also I have no experience programming for Android, I think I have to install the Android Development Tools right? Is it possible to install it for Flash Builder? The only version I see is for Eclipse...

Besides, are there any code samples for programming simple apps for Android in Flash? I haven't found any that aren't VERY OLD (2011 or older). Flash doesn't work as it did in Android, in late 2011 (or close) Adobe discontinued Adobe Flash Player for Android, then Adobe AIR came, and well, I lost track there.

So... if anyone can help me with these questions, I will love you forever (if you're a guy, as friend  , and if you're a girl, anyway you like )

In school we used an MIT App Inventor thing that was in a browser.

Sorry, I can't answer your question as I don't know how it's done. But I just wanna say, don't do that man. Those apps are pure garbage, and oftentimes a pain to work with on the user end. Flash is not built to run on mobiles. If you wanna try your hands at android development, learn web development and use tools like MoSync. The best apps are of course always written in native, but Android supports web view and that works a tiny bit better than flash.

densetsushun wrote:Sorry, I can't answer your question as I don't know how it's done. But I just wanna say, don't do that man. Those apps are pure garbage, and oftentimes a pain to work with on the user end. Flash is not built to run on mobiles. If you wanna try your hands at android development, learn web development and use tools like MoSync. The best apps are of course always written in native, but Android supports web view and that works a tiny bit better than flash.

 I don't care for "garbage" apps, though it's something beyond the scope of this thread. I just want to make games and some utility apps, and ActionScript is an easy language to do so. Also what do you mean that Flash is not build to run on mobiles? I mean, Flash was designed for high-quality simple (2d) animation/animated media, it works perfect on mobiles, Adobe has it's own platform called Adobe AIR that it's specifically for building, compiling and running .swf files on mobile devices.

Making apps via webview is also a choice, but not a very good one given the limitations of it. Flash works nice. Thanks anyway for trying to help.

To answer my own question: I researched a bit, and after some hours I learned some things that will be quite useful for new people in this area (like me):

• Flash Builder already includes Flex SDK, which is an free open-source framework that helps a lot when making apps.
  
• Flash Builder also installs Adobe AIR. Adobe AIR is a platform that lets you build your app for mobile devices.
  
• When creating a Flex project in Flash Builder you can choose settings of which platforms are you targetting, just remember to select File>New>Flex Mobile Project.
  
• I fully recommend Flex as starting base to learn developing apps for Android (obviously if you have a good base of Java you can always go straight into Eclipse and follow the official tutorials of Google).
  
• Here is a nice "Hello, World!" tutorial for Flex. It uses an old version of Flash Builder and the Flex SDK but the code still works and the principles are the same: http://www.adobe.com/devnet/flash-builder/articles/hello-world.html
  
• I got into lot of troubles trying to get my phone to work with Flash Builder for real "on-device" debugging (I have a Samsung Galaxy SII). After almost giving up, I realized all I had to do, was to install the software called Samsung KIES which includes all the necessary drivers for that kind of stuff. If you have troubles getting your phone's drivers installed or getting your phone detected when trying to debug directly into it from the computer, you should check out this page which explains how to install drivers for each phone: http://developer.android.com/tools/extras/oem-usb.html
  

Hope this helped any aspiring dev out there. Good luck with your projects.

Sorry, I didn't mean to sound abrasive and there's nothing wrong with making the learning curve easier. As a developer I can understand how all of these tools are very handy, and there's nothing wrong with using them, but I also deal with UI and UX development and my experience with flash on mobiles is that they react far from expectations, especially compared to webview or native.

Webview does have its inherent limitations, but certain tools(like Adobe Phonegap) can be used to broaden the scope of things you can do. Webview is simply an easy way to develop UI, since most apps have some form of connectivity you can easily hook it up to a server that will parse data for you. MoSync includes Phonegap, which bridges that lack of functionality in webview(it doesn't support all native functions yet, of course), and it allows you to build in web languages and C++. This makes it easy to roll out decent looking and behaving UI, while using C++ for the necessary calculations.

Regarding your phone issues, yeah, Samsung is a stupid company for never releasing their drivers separate from KIES. Other devices have some form of separate drivers though, that makes it easier to develop on.

Again, I'm sorry if I sounded abrasive, it wasn't my point to be rude. There's nothing wrong with making the learning curve easier for yourself.

densetsushun wrote:Sorry, I didn't mean to sound abrasive and there's nothing wrong with making the learning curve easier. As a developer I can understand how all of these tools are very handy, and there's nothing wrong with using them, but I also deal with UI and UX development and my experience with flash on mobiles is that they react far from expectations, especially compared to webview or native.

Webview does have its inherent limitations, but certain tools(like Adobe Phonegap) can be used to broaden the scope of things you can do. Webview is simply an easy way to develop UI, since most apps have some form of connectivity you can easily hook it up to a server that will parse data for you. MoSync includes Phonegap, which bridges that lack of functionality in webview(it doesn't support all native functions yet, of course), and it allows you to build in web languages and C++. This makes it easy to roll out decent looking and behaving UI, while using C++ for the necessary calculations.

Regarding your phone issues, yeah, Samsung is a stupid company for never releasing their drivers separate from KIES. Other devices have some form of separate drivers though, that makes it easier to develop on.

Again, I'm sorry if I sounded abrasive, it wasn't my point to be rude. There's nothing wrong with making the learning curve easier for yourself.

Don't worry, you didn't sound anything but helpful. Your points are interesting, but tell me, will it still work if I'm making an offline app (it won't connect to the internet)?


And do you have any good program to develop webview apps for android? I guess you know some and you seem to know them pretty well

They will work, but last time I used the frameworks they were limited in what phone functions they could access. I used MoSync, but I've also heard that Titanium's a good one. If you're not looking to access too many phone functions(other than notifications or vibrations), then I know for sure MoSync's got you covered. They have a lot of libraries that optimize the stuff they can do with C++ on phones, but the documentation sucks, which is why I don't use it anymore.