Android Pictures and MP3 Remote Control Reloaded

Last year, I made two Android applications that connect to desktop apps: AndroidPictures (you can see the phone’s camera roll on a desktop) and Remote Control for desktop MP3 player (you can control an AIR desktop MP3 player from your mobile phone). At that time, Flex “Hero” wasn’t available, so last week I decided to rewrite these apps, this time using the mobile components from Flex “Hero”.

The reason I rewrote them with Flex “Hero” is quite simple: to see if it simpler or more complicated compared to plain Flex. And not surprisingly it is much simpler with Flex “Hero”. Actually I like the Views and ViewNavigator so much, that I’d love to have them available for desktop applications too.

One note on how these apps connect to each other: I used the new Peer 2 Peer capabilities from AIR/Flash Player. This part is extremely simple actually and if you have a look at the source code you’ll find that I wrap this functionality in a library that is used in both projects.

You can download them from here:

January 30, 2011 | Filed Under AIR, Android | 7 Comments 

Working with Flex RPC Services in ActionScript Mobile Projects

In a previous post I showed you how you can use  QNX UI components in a Flex Mobile project that uses Flex RPC services (REST Style Services/Web Services/Remoting). What if you want to use Flex RPC services in an ActionScript Mobile Project? It isn’t possible, isn’t it? Wrong, you can make it work with a little bit of extra work.

This works because, as my colleague Renaun Erickson said, Flex != MXML. In other words if you add the right parts from the Flex framework to your project you will be able to reuse these Flex services. Though, you won’t be able to write MXML code. Everything will be just ActionScript code.

Once you created a new ActionScript Mobile Project (these project supports Android and BlackBerry Tablet OS as target platforms) there are two steps you have to complete to enable Flex RPC support.

Step 1. Right-click on the project name and choose Properties. Then click on the ActionScript Build Path entry. You will notice there are already some parts of the Flex framework added.

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January 19, 2011 | Filed Under AIR, Android, PlayBook, Tutorials | 3 Comments 

Working with Flex Services and BlackBerry Tablet OS SDK for Adobe AIR

If you are an experienced developer, it’s easy to connect your Flex applications to almost everything. You can use REST Style services, remoting (Remote Procedure Call), and Web Services (WSDL/SOAP). Using a server library like BlazeDS you can use messaging (Producer/Consumer) as well.

What about using these methods with an AIR project for PlayBook created using the BlackBerry Tablet OS SDK for Adobe AIR and the QNX UI library? In this post I will show you how you can create a PlayBook application using QNX components for the UI and HTTPService/RemoteObject for reading data from a server.

Note: In theory, it should be possible to use HTTPService, RemoteObject, and WebService even in a Mobile ActionScript project. I will write another post on this matter. See this post on how to do it.

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January 18, 2011 | Filed Under AIR, PlayBook, Tutorials | 6 Comments 

Making SSH connections to PlayBook Simulator

The latest update of the PlayBook Simulator has support for SSH connections. In this post I will explain the steps you have to follow in order to make an SSH connection to the PlayBook Simulator on a Mac OS.

Step 1. Start the simulator and make sure it is set in development mode (if you don’t know how to set these options read this post). Also, write down the IP address because you’ll needed it later on.

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January 17, 2011 | Filed Under PlayBook, Tutorials | 2 Comments 

Updating to BlackBerry Tablet SDK 0.9.2 from 0.9.1

Yesterday, RIM released version 0.9.2 of their BlackBerry Tablet OS SDK for Adobe AIR. This was just one of the bits announced yesterday – my fellow evangelist, Renaun Erickson, already wrote about this.

So what’s new for AIR development for PlayBook? Here is a list of what caught my eye:

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January 13, 2011 | Filed Under AIR, PlayBook, Tutorials | 13 Comments 

Understanding Flex Mobile View and ViewNavigator

The Flex framework “Hero” makes the task of creating mobile applications for BlackBerry Tablet OS, Android, and soon iOS extremely simple. I think that one of the best looking apps for Android is MAX Companion 2010 and please bear in mind that this app was created using an early build of Flex “Hero”.

This is a reasonably complex application with lots of screens and social integration (Twitter) and yet on my Nexus One and Samsung Galaxy Tab it still works great. This is exactly where the Flex framework can shine on mobile devices: fast and easy development of applications that can connect to virtually anything (web services, REST services, RPC).

In this article I will talk about Flex Mobile Views and ViewNavigator. If you want to use Flex “Hero” to create mobile apps you need to understand how these components work.

Oh and one more thing, if you want to try this yourself you’ll need the Flash Builder “Burrito”. You can download it from here. Read more

January 12, 2011 | Filed Under AIR, Android, Flex, Mobile, PlayBook, Tutorials | 44 Comments 

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