Flash Builder Burrito available

At last, a Flash builder dedicated to mobile !

This week, Adobe released the beta 1 of Flash Builder Burrito....just when I finished my ANT script to handle Android publication on Flahs Builder 4 ;)

I must say a "Flex mobile project" is very easy to create !
I can't wait to test the "Actionscript mobile project".
They still included their boring help system using AIR but else, you'll be surprising how easy it is the make an AIR for Android application : this article on DevNet will help you (don't miss the videos at the end!)

Note this one is dedicated to FP10.1 output, not Flash Lite so...no Device Central!
It currently supports Android but Iphone/IPad & BBery will be added in a future release.

FlashLite Phone Browser v1.3

I updated FlashLite phone browser to the new Sony Ericsson API.

For some times now, Sony tab didn't work anymore...sorry for that.

I also added support for newest Flash Lite and touch screen useful info.

Update througt Help > Check for update... or install from the launcher on the right.

How to produce an app for iPhone/iPad

If you ever want to make a Flash game/app for iPhone/iPad, this post is the main one !
All you need to know in 6 links.

Does AIR runtime's size matter ?

Before I port my game to AIR for Android, I tried to install the runtime on my buggy HTC Desire.
It's always interesting to read comments on this kind of 'important' release.
Unfortunatly, I mainly read comments on something I thought for the beginning : "what ? 16Mo ?!!" or "so big and can't be installed to SD!"

I still can't understand this size, I just can't imagine how long it would take to download and install it OTA...
Now, imagine this :
a gamer download your 200kb game
since it's an AIR game, the game's install process asks the gamer to also install the runtime
what do you think will be the reaction of the gamer when he will need to download a 5Mb file to play your 200kb game ?
and I can't imagine the nightmare if he paid for your game : "I paid for your game but I can't play because I can't/don't want to install an additional 5mb file"
It's EXACTLY what I thought when I downloaded a Polarbit game which asks to install the common lib for all their games

I still think there is a problem there....


It seems there is a trick to install AIR on the SD card but for developers only, not the common gamer!

Who want to sponsor a mobile game ?

Like I said, we submitted a game to Flash Game License contest.
We're happy to say it's one of the 150 winners !

I choose Flash Game License because I (still) don't know the sponsor-way to make some money. As far as I know, the main site to start on sponsoring is Flash Game License so...
Sponsoring is common for Web games but not for mobiles games (I never found a company to sponsor flash lite games!). I hope there will be there a new way to make profit.

So, we now have a game ready to be sponsored* !
This game will be available on the coming soon Adobe site dedicated to Flash mobile games so it's here your chance to get maximum exposure !

Penguinoid is a fun cute game, just what a player looks for on mobile.

And, moreover, we hope we'll be able to publish it soon on the Android Market thanks to AIR2 for Android!

*link only available to register sponsor

Back to Nokia ?

I was very busy these last months trying to develop for Android Froyo.
It was a real pleasure to, AT LAST, develop using AS3 !
But I must say it was painfull to handle multi res, multi input, etc....
It was strange because it made me remember my first tries with Flash Lite 2.0 with a MAJOR difference : I was able to handle ANY device screen size on Flash Lite 2.0

I'm pretty sure we'll meet a LOT of problems we almost solved on Symbian in a near future :
- screen size
- screen orientation
- device os version (Froyo doesn't mean FP10 every times) with a come back of WURFL ?
- system call (need to test AIR as soon as possible for this)
- size (look at FP runtime weight...and AIR runtime weight)
- os update breaking previously working app...and so handling update OTA

At the same times, Nokia is releasing Symbian^3 devices with FLite4 support (AS3!) and drop the OVI Publisher cost...
I think it's time for me to came back to a platform I knew a lot :)
I wonder if I could easily port my AS3 game to FLite4.....

perhaps it's because the roadmap of Android isn't clear enougth or because my HTC Desire keeps crashing for nothing...or because it's clearly interesting

If at least I could win some bucks at Flash Game License compo, I'll be able to pay my Android Market registering cost to (try to) make money with AIR ;)

Embed assets on Actionscript projects

An Actionscript project is, like its name involve, a pure actionscript project.
No .fla file is needed.....so how do you create your asset ?

Several ways
- draw it by code using graphics
- load external file (png, swf, etc...)
- embed the file as a class (Flash Builder only)

The cons of embedding is extra bytes the Flex SDK use to handle embed data throught SpriteAsset, MovieClipAsset,etc...

The basic way to embed asset is

//for PNG/GIF/JPG
[Embed(source="./assets/raw/bulle2.png")]
private var png:Class;
..
var tt:BitmapAsset = BitmapAsset( new png() );
addChild( tt );


//for SWF asset
[Embed(source="./assets/assets.swf", symbol="Bulle")]
private var bulle:Class;
..
var tt:SpriteAsset = SpriteAsset( new bulle() );
addChild( tt );


so, what if you want if bulle is in fact a Bulle class not the raw Class ?
Using this way, you can't do anything...
you can't cast, you can't access to Bulle properties and functions...nothing!
bulle is a closed asset

Thanks to a comment on a post of Bit-101, a better way to embed exists :

package
{
import flash.display.Sprite;

[Embed(source="./assets/assets.swf", symbol="Bulle")]
public class Bulle extends Sprite
{
public function Bulle()
{
super();
trace("Bulle created");
}


This method is, for me, a great value because the class code isn't included in the assets.swf file !
It's mean
- my graphist just needs to create her asset and assign it a classname
- the class doesn't need to be coded before the asset to be created (and stop the fight "code or gfx first ?")
- the asset could be used on several games with different code (!marvelous!)
- any extended classes will inherit the embed asset
- no need for SpriteAsset, MovieClipAsset,etc... ex: with the 'bulle' asset below I produce a 20708bytes file using standard embed and a 10586bytes file using optimized one (10kb won!)

Of course, you could do the same for PNG/JPG/GIF
[Embed(source="./assets/raw/bulle2.png")]
public class Png extends Bitmap{}

and MP3
[Embed(source="./assets/beep.mp3")]
public class Beep extends Sound{}