Synopses & Reviews
Android is a software toolkit for mobile phones, created by Google and the Open Handset Alliance. It's inside millions of cell phones and other mobile devices, making Android a major platform for application developers. That could be your own program running on all those devices.
Getting started developing with Android is easy. You don't even need access to an Android phone, just a computer where you can install the Android SDK and the phone emulator that comes with it. Within minutes, "Hello, Android" will get you creating your first working application: Android's version of "Hello, World."
From there, you'll build up a more substantial example: an Android Sudoku game. By gradually adding features to the game throughout the course of the book, you'll learn about many aspects of Android programming including user interfaces, multimedia, and the Android life cycle.
This second edition has been completely revised for Android 1.5 (Cupcake) and Android 1.6 (Donut). Every page and example was reviewed and updated for compatibility with the new version. In addition, two new appendixes show you how to create Widgets for the Home screen and publish your application to the Android Market.
If you're a busy developer who'd rather be coding than reading about coding, this book is for you. To help you find what you need to know fast, each chapter ends with a "Fast-Forward" section. These sections provide guidance for where you should go next when you need to read the book out of order.
Synopsis
If you want to use your ActionScript skills to build mobile applications for the Android OS, this thorough guide will show you how to use the unique programming environment, architecture, and tools in the Adobe AIR for Android SDK. You'll get practical hands-on experience on a wide range of development topics, from device-specific features to optimization techniques and best practices -- including how expand your mobile development experience beyond Android to other platforms.
Developing Android Apps with Adobe AIR takes you through the entire development process, with ready-to-run example code that implements each feature discussed, including:
- Touch and gesture events, and screen orientation
- Saving and retrieving data on the device
- Features such as geolocation and the accelerometer
- Animation, scrolling, device resolution, and vector images versus bitmaps
- Architecture for one screen at a time and breadcrumb navigation
- Advanced topics, such as security, custom views, and optimization
Synopsis
For developers who want to use their ActionScript skills to build mobile applications for the Android OS, this thorough guide will show them how to use the unique programming environment, architecture, and tools in the Adobe AIR for Android SDK.
Synopsis
Put your ActionScript 3 skills to work building mobile apps. This book shows you how to develop native applications for Android-based smartphones and tablets from the ground up, using Adobe AIR. You learn the entire development process hands-on, from coding specific functions to options for getting your app published.
Start by building a sample app with step-by-step instructions, using either Flash Professional or Flash Builder. Then learn how to use ActionScript libraries for typical device features, such as the camera and the accelerometer. This book includes ready-to-run example code and a case study that demonstrates how to bring all of the elements together into a full-scale working app.
- Create functionality and content that works on multiple Android devices
- Choose from several data storage options
- Create view and navigation components, including a back button
- Get tips for designing user experience with touch and gestures
- Build a location-aware app, or one that makes use of motion
- Explore ways to use audio, video, and photos in your application
- Learn best practices for asset management and development
About the Author
'
Ed Burnette is a software industry veteran with more than 25 years of experience as a programmer, author, and speaker. His development credits include everything from commercial video games to high-performance grid computing systems. Ed is a founding member and senior researcher at the SAS Advanced Computing Lab.
Ed has authored numerous technical articles and books, including Google Web Toolkit: Taking the Pain out of Ajax and Eclipse IDE Pocket Guide. He writes the Dev Connection blog for ZDNet, and is the creator of Planet Android (http://www.planetandroid.com).
In his copious spare time, you can often find him playing video games with his two sons at their home in central North Carolina.'
Table of Contents
Foreword; Preface; Audience; Assumptions This Book Makes; Contents of This Book; Conventions Used in This Book; Using Code Examples; We'd Like to Hear from You; Safari® Books Online; Acknowledgments; Chapter 1: AIR; 1.1 Installing the Adobe Development Tools; 1.2 Installing the AIR Runtime on an Android Device; 1.3 What Is in the AIR SDK; 1.4 New ActionScript Libraries; 1.5 AIR on the Desktop Versus AIR on Android; 1.6 Mobile Flash Player 10.1 Versus AIR 2.6 on Android; Chapter 2: Call Me, Text Me; 2.1 Setting Up Your Device; 2.2 Creating a Project; 2.3 Creating the Application Descriptor; 2.4 Writing the Code; 2.5 Packaging Your Application As an APK File and Installing It on the Device; 2.6 Testing and Debugging; 2.7 Mobile Utility Applications; 2.8 Installing AIR on an Android Device via a Server; 2.9 Other Tools; 2.10 Conclusion; Chapter 3: Android; 3.1 Android Software Development Kit; 3.2 How Does AIR Run on Android?; 3.3 Using the Command-Line Tool; 3.4 Conclusion; Chapter 4: Permissions, Certificates, and Installation; 4.1 Why Mobile?; 4.2 The APK File; 4.3 Registering As an Android Developer; 4.4 Publishing an Application on the Android Market; 4.5 Controlling Distribution by Using the MAC Address; 4.6 Launching an AIR Application; 4.7 Monetizing Your Application; 4.8 Reporting; 4.9 Conclusion; Chapter 5: Evaluating Device Capabilities and Handling Multiple Devices; 5.1 Hardware; 5.2 Software; 5.3 Creating Content for Multiple Screens; 5.4 Conclusion; Chapter 6: Opening and Closing an Application and Saving Data; 6.1 The AIR Application; 6.2 Why and How to Save Data; 6.3 Conclusion; Chapter 7: Multitouch Technology; 7.1 A Brief History; 7.2 What Is Multitouch and Gesture?; 7.3 The Multitouch Class; 7.4 The GestureEvent Class; 7.5 The TouchEvent Class; 7.6 The GestureWorks Library; 7.7 Designing for Touch; 7.8 Conclusion; Chapter 8: Accelerometer; 8.1 What Is a Motion Sensor?; 8.2 Conclusion; Chapter 9: Camera; 9.1 The Gallery Application and the CameraRoll Class; 9.2 The Camera Application and the CameraUI Class; 9.3 EXIF Data; 9.4 Conclusion; Chapter 10: Geolocation; 10.1 Geolocation Classes; 10.2 Locating a Device Using Global Positioning System and Network/WiFi Technology; 10.3 AIR and Android; 10.4 Reverse Geocoding; 10.5 Maps; 10.6 EXIF Data and the Map Object; 10.7 The speed Property; 10.8 Conclusion; Chapter 11: Microphone and Audio; 11.1 The Microphone; 11.2 Audio Assets; 11.3 Working with Sounds; 11.4 ID3 Tags; 11.5 Modifying Sound; 11.6 Raw Data and the Sound Spectrum; 11.7 Audio and Application Activity; 11.8 Conclusion; Chapter 12: Video; 12.1 Preparing Video; 12.2 Playing Video; 12.3 Capturing Video; 12.4 Conclusion; Chapter 13: StageWebView; 13.1 The Native Browser; 13.2 The StageWebView Class; 13.3 Conclusion; Chapter 14: Hardware Acceleration; 14.1 Some Definitions; 14.2 Rendering, or How Things Are Drawn to the Screen; 14.3 GPU Rendering on Android; 14.4 The Display List; 14.5 Matrices; 14.6 Hardware-Accelerated Audio and Video; 14.7 Conclusion; Chapter 15: Your Device and Others; 15.1 RTMFP UDP; 15.2 P2P Over a Local Network; 15.3 P2P Over a Remote Network; 15.4 Arduino and Physical Computing; 15.5 Conclusion; Chapter 16: ViewManager; 16.1 Navigation; 16.2 Breadcrumb Navigation; 16.3 Flash Builder ViewNavigator; 16.4 Conclusion; Chapter 17: Case Study; 17.1 The Album Application; 17.2 Conclusion; Chapter 18: Asset Management; 18.1 Text; 18.2 Optimizing Art; 18.3 Bitmap Size and Mip Mapping; 18.4 Vector Graphics at Runtime; 18.5 Sprite Sheet and Blitting; 18.6 Custom Cursor; 18.7 Asynchronous Bitmap Decoding; 18.8 Caching Assets; 18.9 Components; 18.10 Conclusion; Chapter 19: Best Practices for Development; 19.1 Resources on Optimization; 19.2 Where to Find Help; 19.3 How Does It Run?; 19.4 Memory; 19.5 Events; 19.6 Diagnostics Tools; 19.7 Conclusion; Colophon;