I wanted to learn action script for mobile development.Me and my friends are planning to make some Mobile games.What tools should we buy ?
Adobe Flash Builder Premium
Adobe Flash Professional
I noticed that you have mentioned Starling framework in your tags, so I assume you will be using it in your games. Thus you can effectively use Flash Develop as it is free and stable IDE, which will let you build your Starling project for PC and mobile very easily.
Flash Builder is more Flex-bussiness app oriented and Adobe Flash Professional is not particulary good at code editing, because it's primary purpose is to allow designers quickly create flash apps.
I totally agree with GuardianX for his comments on Flash Builder and Flash Professional.
As an IDE alternative I definitely recommend IntelliJ IDEA. It gives better performance and you can do everything you can do on Flash Builder (Packaging etc.)
Related
I'm planning to use list & label as a reporting tool for my MVC Web Application, I downloaded the trial version and the sample code was really helpful.
I'm almost settled on using this as my app's reporting tool but I'm thinking twice on their web app report designer tool, because I needed to install the chrome extension before I can use it.
I'm using version LL v.20
So my questions are:
Is the chrome extension really needed for the designer to work? I'm thinking that if my app goes live, will I require my clients to install this plugin first?
Will the designer have issues on other browser? So far I haven't seen extensions/plugins for IE (only Fireforx, Safari, Opera, Chrome).
PS. If all else fail, can you suggest an alternative for this? The reporting tool that I need is web-based and allows end-users to edit the reports. Thanks!
1) Yes, you need to install the plugin on the client side.
2) For IE, there's a Designer ActiveX. Simply open your existing app in IE, you should be offered to install the OCX right away.
As to your general concerns:
We plan to replace the plugins with a client-side application that can be one-time installed with a couple of clicks in LL21. The reasoning is the step-by-step deprecation of plugins by most browser vendors. Changing between the plugins and the new designer app will be quite easy. The new designer will also support previewing at design time. Depending on when you plan to ship your application it may well be worth the wait till October.
I have tried List and Label Web Designer and found that installing additional application for all users is not a good idea. Will look for another solutions, may be FastReport.Net. That online designer is realy online and can work not only on Windows.
I currently have a fully working web app built in Flex 3.5/4 using java back end with Spring Framework using TomCat.
I need to migrate or convert this project into Flash Builder 4.6 to create a mobile iOS application and use the same SpringFramework with TomCat. How can i do this?
Do i just copy code over and adjust?
Do I export from flex 3.5/4 and import into flash builder 4.6 and adjust for mobile?
Is there a certain export feature that exports to mobile?
Do I have to change the code to mobile components by hand? Is there anything automated?
I have spent about 3 days trying to search and figure out specific detailed information on what to do, but oddly enough, I have not found anything that is helpful. I say it is ODD because Adobe claims that with Flash Builder 4.6 and 4.7, migrating to different platforms, will remove about 70% of the work with the latest Flash Builder. However, I have found no tutorials or steps on exactly what to do. I don't even know if the spring framework would work with TomCat for an iOS app.
Here's what I have found out through my research:
1. Migrating to mobile, I will have to change various code to use the mobile optimized components for performance.
What do I need to do?
EDIT: I even tried adding mx.swc to my library path just for testing purposes to make things easier for the migration/conversion and it still doesn't fix my error in Flash Builder 4.6 mobile project with mx:Application:
http://i.stack.imgur.com/dFdIk.jpg
Lots of things to cover; and I'm not sure where to start. First, I want to clarify that the browser based app you developed for a 72-ish dpi 15+ inch computer screen may not easily migrate to 3.5/4 inch iPhone or 9.7 inch iPad screen. Keeping that in mind
Do i just copy code over and adjust?
I would start there, yes. Even better if you move the 'shared' code into a library project so you can use it for your web app and your mobile project. Flex 3.5 does not formally have mobile support; so I would not expect great performance on a mobile device. You'll also have to add some "non-mobile optimized" libraries to the library path manually in a Flash Builder Mobile project. The MX.swc is probably the big one, as you already mentioned.
Do I export from flex 3.5/4 and import into flash builder 4.6 and adjust for mobile?
In Flash Builder 4.6 mobile projects are different than web projects. Most likely you'll want to move as much shared code as possible into a library project and then create a web project--for maintenance of your current application--and a mobile project for deployment to iOS and other mobile devices.
Is there a certain export feature that exports to mobile?
If you have created a Flash Builder Mobile project; then yes you can export to iOS, Android, or Blackberry.
Do I have to change the code to mobile components by hand? Is there anything automated?
Yes, you'll have to change code to mobile components by hand. That is if you are replacing a non-mobile optimized component with a mobile optimized one. However, if you are using a Spark Component [introduced in Flex 4], such as a List, then you can use the spark list with the default theme in the web project and a spark list with the mobile theme in your mobile project without any changes.
...Adobe claims that with Flash Builder 4.6 and 4.7, migrating to
different platforms, will remove about 70% of the work with the latest
Flash Builder.
I am not aware of such claims. But, I do believe that you can reuse a lot of code between mobile projects and non-mobile projects. It took me 3-4 months to build a mobile game using AIR/Flex. It took me less than a day to port the code to work in a web browser.
I don't even know if the spring framework would work with TomCat for
an iOS app.
If you want you're iOS app to make calls to a server, then yes it will work without issues.
If you want to deploy Tomcat and Spring onto an iOS device I would not expect that to work.
This question is a bit non-specific; but I tried to help. If that doesn't point you in a direction, then I may ask what have you tried and what problems have you run into?
Story:
I have written a HTML Merge Compiler that can merge resource's/assets into one single HTML file (minify it to the max) and compiles Javascript with the google enclosure compiler. I have written this compiler to speed up loading and interpreting the code and to obfuscate the code to protect a little bit (script kiddie protection). Major reason was/is speed and to make it compact.
This is working OK with reliable results and i use this in PhoneGap applications/games. I have also written a javascript library that encapsulate all platforms that works with standard HTML/CSS without the need to change the code, it works also in the browser, with a touchscreen or without or on any device or operating system. Write once, publish many ;-). The idea around it is that is working always, always operate the same but can use device specific things when available but does never fail (when something is not there, for example a vibrate functionality).
Anyway, most frameworks (like PhoneGap) concentrate on Mobile Platforms but i want to port it also to desktop platforms like Windows, OSX and maybe Linux. For Windows I have wrote an Delphi Application that loads the HTML in a TEmbeddedWB object (is Internet Explorer actually) but the 'problem' is that it is only suitable to Windows and IE is not the fastest browser around, especially when it is embedded (do not why it is slower than the browser itself). For example, when i load the compiled code in Firefox and/or Google Chrome it is blazing fast (you do not notice it is javascript ;-)).
EDIT:
Pre release of IE10 for Windows 7 is just launched, installed it and lag is gone!
You can download it from here:
http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=35709
Introduction to my question:
I have tried XULRunner of Mozilla a long time ago but the first time was not a pleasure to me and also i tried it today again but can't get it to work. Get a parse error in the main xul file of the project, window is an undefined entity. ??? I create a sample project like: http://mdn.beonex.com/en/Getting_started_with_XULRunner.html
I do not know what to do about this error. Also i think documentation is not up-to-date? Most documentation is from around 2006.
The question, what i want to know:
Before i am going to waste my time (see also introduction), is it
possible to create frameless (full-screen) desktop executables with
use of XULRunner like with PhoneGap?
Is it possible to create cross-platform applications with XULRunner, i mean, does it really work seamless. Where can i find a ready-to-publish example of a XULRunner project and is it possible to load local HTML file(s) like in PhoneGap?
It is possible and allowed to access external resources?
Long story, but maybe there is somebody that have tried this before and can lead me to choose the right direction.
is it possible to create frameless (full-screen) desktop executables with use of XULRunner like with PhoneGap?
Yes. You use disablechrome attribute to remove the window frame and sizemode="maximized" to have it open full-screen. Alternatively you can use the full-screen API if you want your application to run in a normal window and only switch to full-screen mode on request.
Is it possible to create cross-platform applications with XULRunner
Yes. There are things like menus that work very differently on OS X but most of the time you don't need to care what operating system your application runs on (Windows, Linux and Mac OS X supported).
Where can i find a ready-to-publish example of a XULRunner project
See documentation for a XULRunner application example. For "ready-to-publish" you would need an installer which doesn't come with the platform.
is it possible to load local HTML file(s) like in PhoneGap?
Yes. The top-level window has to be XUL but you can use some very minimal code here - essentially a single <iframe flex="1"/> tag. You can load HTML pages into that frame then.
It is possible and allowed to access external resources?
Yes, XULRunner applications have full privileges and can access files on disk as well as web resources without any restrictions.
I have a Delphi VCL application which I'm using to show some pictures and I would like to know if there is any possibility to transform it into a browser plugin (like firefox, google chrome etc ) in order to load it remotely, like a java applet.
for all of them the answer is NO. even for IE it is sometimes difficult...VCL applications means win32/64 development in general, browsers are more 'related' to web development. you can reconsider and try to resolve this by using an already existing platform which can be easily integrated into web browsers like Shockwave (yeah, I don't like to give links to wikipedia...) or another similar tool.
You can use VirtualUI from CybeleSoft to run your Windows app in a browser. You still need to set up your backend server with database etc, and make sure that some operations are blocked - you don't want someone to browse through your server files ;-)
There are options:
ActiveX plugin (you might need to enable ActiveX support in browser or use a special plugin to enable it)
NPAPI plugin (will be deprecated in Chrome in late 2014). See question: How to embed Delphi VCL form into HTML page using NPAPI?
Take a look at the samples on Raudus. It might be what you are looking for. It will be interesting for you to read this about VCL compatible component set for the web.
The Apple dev site makes it look as tho it has all the tools you want for developing iPad apps. Should I consider any other tools outside the Apple development tools for iPad development?
Thanks so much in advance for your help!
MonoTouch is another option, if you're a .NET developer looking to do iPhone/iPad development. (Currently MonoTouch has experimental, alpha-level support for iPad, but full support shouldn't be far away.) It's not free, but it's a great tool if you're coming from that background.
Plus it compiles to native code for the iPhone, so can be used for App Store builds and everything.
Adobe has some tools where you can author in Flash/Flex/Air and it will compile down into a valid iPhone/iPad application, that can be accepted and sold in the appstore.
There's also a company called Unity3D http://unity3d.com/unity/features/iphone-publishing.html that has some alternative iPhone/iPad development tools (where you program in C#!)
It depends on what kind of tools you're talking about... If you mean applications, you can use any editor you want for example, like TextMate or Vim or anything else (personally, I hate Xcode's built-in editor, it can't even open files in tabs...). You'll still need to use Xcode for building the app and IB for preparing the interfaces though (unless you want to create entire UI in code, which is madness). I'm not aware of any unofficial tools that can build an iPhone app or create NIB interface files.
If you mean frameworks that allow you to code in something else than ObjC (like Adobe's Flash tools or MonoTouch), then these were recently banned by Apple, so you need to stick to the standard ObjC/Cocoa APIs.