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Flash Development for Android Cookbook
Written in cookbook style, this book offers solutions to all common Flash Android development problems through recipes. Each recipe contains step-by-step instructions followed by analysis of what was done in each task and other useful information. The book is designed so that you can read it chapter by chapter, or you can look at the list of recipes and refer to them in no particular order. This book contains recipes covering a variety of topics from the very simple to those that are more advanced. If you are a seasoned Flash developer, this book will get you quickly up to speed with what is possible with Android. For those who are new to Flash, welcome to the world of visually rich, rapid application development for mobile Android devices! If you have any interest in Flash development for Android, this book is for you.
372 pages, Paperback
First published June 16, 2011
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
September 30, 2011
For any Flash or Flex developer looking to create applications for mobile (in particular Android ones) then this is a great book to have on your desk! Weighing in at 372 pages, there is a lot of content in there just waiting for you to try out and play with.
First things first, this is a Cookbook. It’s not a reference title listing every single API and documenting every single class available. Though to be honest, it seems to cover most of the new AIR for Android features. The idea behind a Cookbook is to provide you with a selection of ‘recipes’ or common tasks, and then explain how to go about solving them in a clear and concise way. This book does this brilliantly. It is the sort of book you can dib into when you have a specific thing to get done in your app and you’re not sure where to start. Having said that, I basically read it from cover to cover, and still found it very informative and enjoyable.
The book is broken up into the following 11 chapters …
Chapter 1: Getting Ready to Work with Android: Development Environment and Project Setup (10 recipes)
Chapter 2: Interaction Experience: Multitouch, Gestures, and Other Input (13 recipes)
Chapter 3: Movement through Space: Accelerometer and Geolocation Sensors (9 recipes)
Chapter 4: Visual and Audio Input: Camera and Microphone Access (6 recipes)
Chapter 5: Rich Media Presentation: Working with Images, Video, and Audio (7 recipes)
Chapter 6: Structural Adaptation: Handling Device Layout and Scaling (12 recipes)
Chapter 7: Native Interaction: StageWebView and URI Handlers (10 recipes)
Chapter 8: Abundant Access: File System and Local Database (7 recipes)
Chapter 9: Manifest Assurance: Security and Android Permissions (6 recipes)
Chapter 10: Avoiding Problems: Debugging and Resource Considerations (6 recipes)
Chapter 11: Final Considerations: Application Compilation and Distribution (10 recipes)
All these chapter are equally important and cover a wide range of features, but which ones you’ll actually need to use will depend on your project and what you are trying to achieve. Although the title of this book specifies Android, most of the code in this book will work equally well on iOS devices and the BlackBerry PlayBook. That’s the joy of developing using ActionScript and AIR!
I was particularly pleased to see that nearly all the code examples were IDE agnostic and didn’t tie you in to the Flex framework. They concentrated on using pure ActionScript in whatever IDE you feel comfortable working in. In fact, Joseph even went to the trouble of explaining any IDE specific stuff using example in Flash Pro CS5.5, Flash Builder 4.5 and FDT 4.1.
Once you have had a flick through at some of the examples it quickly becomes clear that Adobe have done a really good job at providing a consistent and logical API for achieving all these new mobile specific things. And this book does a great job of demystifying it all.
My one criticism would be that there is quite a lot of repetitive code (about 14 lines) in each example, where Joseph sets up an output textfield (and accompanying textformat) for demonstration purposes. But I guess I noticed it more because I was reading the book straight through (not how it was intended to be read). At least this way, each ‘recipe’ or example is self contained and provides everything you need to get you up and running easily.
I did notice a few errors here and there (code and layout), but nothing too serious that would cause you issues.
I’d thoroughly recommend this title to anyone who is interested in creating mobile apps for either Android, iOS or PlayBook using AIR and ActionScript.
First things first, this is a Cookbook. It’s not a reference title listing every single API and documenting every single class available. Though to be honest, it seems to cover most of the new AIR for Android features. The idea behind a Cookbook is to provide you with a selection of ‘recipes’ or common tasks, and then explain how to go about solving them in a clear and concise way. This book does this brilliantly. It is the sort of book you can dib into when you have a specific thing to get done in your app and you’re not sure where to start. Having said that, I basically read it from cover to cover, and still found it very informative and enjoyable.
The book is broken up into the following 11 chapters …
Chapter 1: Getting Ready to Work with Android: Development Environment and Project Setup (10 recipes)
Chapter 2: Interaction Experience: Multitouch, Gestures, and Other Input (13 recipes)
Chapter 3: Movement through Space: Accelerometer and Geolocation Sensors (9 recipes)
Chapter 4: Visual and Audio Input: Camera and Microphone Access (6 recipes)
Chapter 5: Rich Media Presentation: Working with Images, Video, and Audio (7 recipes)
Chapter 6: Structural Adaptation: Handling Device Layout and Scaling (12 recipes)
Chapter 7: Native Interaction: StageWebView and URI Handlers (10 recipes)
Chapter 8: Abundant Access: File System and Local Database (7 recipes)
Chapter 9: Manifest Assurance: Security and Android Permissions (6 recipes)
Chapter 10: Avoiding Problems: Debugging and Resource Considerations (6 recipes)
Chapter 11: Final Considerations: Application Compilation and Distribution (10 recipes)
All these chapter are equally important and cover a wide range of features, but which ones you’ll actually need to use will depend on your project and what you are trying to achieve. Although the title of this book specifies Android, most of the code in this book will work equally well on iOS devices and the BlackBerry PlayBook. That’s the joy of developing using ActionScript and AIR!
I was particularly pleased to see that nearly all the code examples were IDE agnostic and didn’t tie you in to the Flex framework. They concentrated on using pure ActionScript in whatever IDE you feel comfortable working in. In fact, Joseph even went to the trouble of explaining any IDE specific stuff using example in Flash Pro CS5.5, Flash Builder 4.5 and FDT 4.1.
Once you have had a flick through at some of the examples it quickly becomes clear that Adobe have done a really good job at providing a consistent and logical API for achieving all these new mobile specific things. And this book does a great job of demystifying it all.
My one criticism would be that there is quite a lot of repetitive code (about 14 lines) in each example, where Joseph sets up an output textfield (and accompanying textformat) for demonstration purposes. But I guess I noticed it more because I was reading the book straight through (not how it was intended to be read). At least this way, each ‘recipe’ or example is self contained and provides everything you need to get you up and running easily.
I did notice a few errors here and there (code and layout), but nothing too serious that would cause you issues.
I’d thoroughly recommend this title to anyone who is interested in creating mobile apps for either Android, iOS or PlayBook using AIR and ActionScript.
September 27, 2011
So, lately I’ve found myself trying to better myself in the world of flash programming. And I’ve come to the realisation that one of the best outlets for my creativity is on the mobile platform. Namely, the diverse Android mobile OS. However upon approaching this hefty task of writing an app for the Android, I found myself way out of my depth.
You see, to program an app for Android you have to think about 101 more factors than you do with a normal PC app. Well only if you want the app to be any good that is…
However fortunately for me, I just so happened to be presented with a marvellous new book specifically catered for my needs. The name of said brilliant book; “Flash Development for Android Cookbook”.
This book perfectly covers all the angles that an existing developer needs to progress on to Android development. Well, I say an “existing developer”, but in actual fact you can pretty much pick up this book with very little prior knowledge in programming and still get your head around what is going on in a very short space of time.
Right from the word go, the book is teaching you at a very rapid but very structured pace, all the things you should know. It even covers the basics such as setting up your projects to begin with. Which can be useful even for those veteran developers who just need their technique refreshed.
Within days you will find yourself taking advantage of the Android’s Multitouch, Gestures and other Inputs, and before you know it you have completed your app. Having utilised things like the systems accelerometer and visual and audio input, you will be shocked at how fast you have learned.
All in all, I think that this book does a brilliant job at encouraging the learner and motivating them to keep progressing at a fast pace, no matter what level of programming they begun with. Definitely a title to check out if you are interested in breaking into the massive mobile app market. 9.5/10.
If you want to find out more about the book, or get the digital version you can find more information at http://www.packtpub.com/flash-develop...
You see, to program an app for Android you have to think about 101 more factors than you do with a normal PC app. Well only if you want the app to be any good that is…
However fortunately for me, I just so happened to be presented with a marvellous new book specifically catered for my needs. The name of said brilliant book; “Flash Development for Android Cookbook”.
This book perfectly covers all the angles that an existing developer needs to progress on to Android development. Well, I say an “existing developer”, but in actual fact you can pretty much pick up this book with very little prior knowledge in programming and still get your head around what is going on in a very short space of time.
Right from the word go, the book is teaching you at a very rapid but very structured pace, all the things you should know. It even covers the basics such as setting up your projects to begin with. Which can be useful even for those veteran developers who just need their technique refreshed.
Within days you will find yourself taking advantage of the Android’s Multitouch, Gestures and other Inputs, and before you know it you have completed your app. Having utilised things like the systems accelerometer and visual and audio input, you will be shocked at how fast you have learned.
All in all, I think that this book does a brilliant job at encouraging the learner and motivating them to keep progressing at a fast pace, no matter what level of programming they begun with. Definitely a title to check out if you are interested in breaking into the massive mobile app market. 9.5/10.
If you want to find out more about the book, or get the digital version you can find more information at http://www.packtpub.com/flash-develop...
September 29, 2011
This book provides you with everything you need to start developing programs and games on android using Adobe AIR, assuming you already have some knowledge in ActionScript.
It shows short “recipes” on how to interface with everything that you would want to on the phone, from gestures, drawing, acceleration and geolocation, camera, microphone, images, video, audio, local storage and SQLLite, to even putting the final app on the market.
Every recipe is well written, and specific to the interface you will be looking for, so you can easily find how to use the accelerometer, or load up the browser within your app. Most examples show how to do everything in Flash Builder (Flex), Flash ‘professional’, FDT, and even command line, so you have many options (although the code will work well in any of them).
The only negative I found with the book is that in Chapter 1, you learn how to compile, and run a program on Android, but Chapter 10 is when it actually goes into debugging, and setting up different configurations for testing your app. I wasn’t sure how to have the app test run in Windows instead of running on my Android directly until that chapter (although it is a cookbook- you pick which chapter is relevant what you’re trying to do).
If you have built applications or games using Flash/Flex before, and would like to have a version running on Android, this book will give you all the information you need, and is a great reference as well!
Get it now to get your Flash apps running on Android!
It shows short “recipes” on how to interface with everything that you would want to on the phone, from gestures, drawing, acceleration and geolocation, camera, microphone, images, video, audio, local storage and SQLLite, to even putting the final app on the market.
Every recipe is well written, and specific to the interface you will be looking for, so you can easily find how to use the accelerometer, or load up the browser within your app. Most examples show how to do everything in Flash Builder (Flex), Flash ‘professional’, FDT, and even command line, so you have many options (although the code will work well in any of them).
The only negative I found with the book is that in Chapter 1, you learn how to compile, and run a program on Android, but Chapter 10 is when it actually goes into debugging, and setting up different configurations for testing your app. I wasn’t sure how to have the app test run in Windows instead of running on my Android directly until that chapter (although it is a cookbook- you pick which chapter is relevant what you’re trying to do).
If you have built applications or games using Flash/Flex before, and would like to have a version running on Android, this book will give you all the information you need, and is a great reference as well!
Get it now to get your Flash apps running on Android!
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews