Building and Deploying Samples for AIR

The Samples-for-AIR project is publicly available online at github and can be downloaded using  git version control.

Using git, perform the following in a command prompt:

git clone https://github.com/blackberry/Samples-for-AIR.git

The above command will copy Samples-for-Air source to Samples-for-AIR directory.

GitHub also provides git-less access to a repo’s sources via a zip-ball.  In this case, point your browser or curl to https://github.com/blackberry/Samples-for-AIR/zipball/master and unzip.

Importing project into Flash Builder 4.5

Adobe Flash Builder 4.5 and Blackberry Tablet OS SDK for Adobe AIR are both required to build the Samples for AIR project. See http://us.blackberry.com/developers/tablet/adobe.jsp

Once you’ve checked out the Samples-for-Air project, launch Flash Builder 4.5 and click File\Import\Flash Builder\Flash Builder Project

Select Project Folder Samples-For-Air\SampleLibrary and click Finish.

Repeat the above steps and import Samples-For-Air\SampleApplication and click Finish.

You should now have two projects SampleAirApplication and SampleAirLibrary. You’re now ready to begin exploring the sample application and library.

When creating this project Adobe AIR SDK version 3.1 was used with the BlackBerry tablet OS SDK. Therefore, if you’re using a different Adobe AIR SDK version, SampleAirApplication/src/SampleApplication-app.xml may require a change.  If you experience the following error:  Namespace x.x.x in the application descriptor file should be equal or higher than the minimum version x.x.x required by Flex SDK

The above example shows changing the xmlns version to 3.1 in the line

<application xmlns=”http://ns.adobe.com/air/application/3.1″&gt;

in SampleAirApplication/src/SampleApplication-app.xml to match the version of the Adobe AIR SDK version 3.1 installed.

Deploying Sample AIR project to the BlackBerry Playbook

NOTE, some included APIs will not execute within Desktop Application Flash builder debug profiles.

Select SampleAirApplication and choose Run As Mobile Application (or Debug As)

Set the following properties in the Debug Configurations window:

• Project: SampleAirApplication
• Application File: src/SampleApplication
• Target Platform: BlackBerry Tablet OS
• Launch Method: On device

NOTE: When configuring BlackBerry Tablet test device profile USB is preferred as WiFi reception can cause the connection to fail, depending on your WiFi signal strength. The USB port starts with 169.254.*.* If you are using Tablet OS version 1.0.7 and above the IP address will be 169.254.0.1 and set the debug host to 169.254.0.2.

Edit BlackBerry Tablet OS Test Device. These settings must match those in the Playbook OptionsSecurityDevelopment Mode see Enabling debug mode on the BlackBerry Playbook.

Enabling debug mode on the BlackBerry Playbook

Enable development mode on your BlackBerry Playbook by visiting Playbook Options\Security\Development Mode and set Use development mode set to on.

Need help installing a Debug Token in your Playbook?

Customizing the Sample Library package path and directory structure

Open Samples-for-AIR\SampleLibrary\build.xml with your favourite editor and locate the line:

<property name=”generated.package.root” value=”com.playbook.samples”/>

To change the package path of the sample library change value=”com.playbook.samples” to your preferred package path. e .g.

<property name=”generated.package.root” value=”net.foo“/>

Then, from a command prompt, execute ant in Samples-for-AIR\SampleLibrary

$ ant

Buildfile: c:\temp\Samples-for-AIR\SampleLibrary\build.xml

generatesource:
[echo] Generated source will copied to: generated/net/foo
[echo] Target package: net.foo.*
<snip>
[echo] Generated source copied to: generated/net/foo
[echo]
[echo]

BUILD SUCCESSFUL
Total time: 1 second

The newly generated source files will be found in Samples-for-AIR\SampleLibrary\generated

After running the above example, the package path in each source file starts with net.foo. e.g Samples-for-AIR\SampleLibrary\generated\net\foo\ui\menu\Menu.as contains package net.foo.ui.menu

 

See related post Samples for AIR: An open source project for the BlackBerry Playbook.