This is the first ANE that I made for my own project… hopefully my other ones can be released soon.
Anyways, let’s get right to it.
The ApplicationFinder ANE is something I created to help you find other Applications on your Android system. You can get information 2 ways.
isAppInstalled(package:String):PackageInfo
This method looks to see if a particular application (by app id) is installed. If the application is installed ApplicationFinder returns the name, package id, version number, and version name of the application. If the app isn’t installed you get null.
getInstalledApps():Array
This method just returns to you the entire list of installed apps. Go nuts, search and find what you need. Like the isAppInstalled you get the name, package id, version number, and version name of the application.
Later I’ll add things like also returning the app icon, possibly some app management methods (startup, shutdown, etc).
I’ve included my test app here so you can run it, and then the ANE also. Enjoy!
Test Application (FXP)
ApplicationFinder.ane
Today I am releasing a custom Queue Manager for the Sony Tablets and the Air App Challenge.
Thanks to Adobe AIR and Flex this process was extremely simple. Feel free to poke through if you have a Netflix account. This new version uses the newest versions of Flex and AIR.
Feel free to leave comments and let me know your thoughts.
Disclaimer:
First off, I’m not an Adobe employee and so all the thoughts presented are my own. I do however make a living off of Adobe products and use them daily… basically consistently. As such I feel that I have a good grasp of the possible pitfalls when using the tooling. Anyways, enough disclaimer.
Rather than just saying “I loved it” or “I hated it” I’m going to run you through my flow of emotions throughout the week to try and communicate my stream of consciousness – hopefully it doesn’t drive you too crazy.
PreMAX
The week started for me already on the road going to and coming from the Big Android BBQ in Austin. Being crushed with the stress of trying to finish up my Air App Challenge application and prepping for 8 presentations in the next few days I definitely wasn’t as social as I usually would have been. I took a train to Austin to give me some time to work and when I arrived the Android Guys were doing what they do well – drink heavily. It was fun to see friends from last year’s conference and many people immediately recognized me as the person that represented Adobe and AIR at last year’s conference – many of them telling me how well their Air for Android apps were doing.
I was extremely impressed the entire time in Austin how well the Android Community opened their arms to Adobe and Adobe is doing all they can to repay them in kind. Presentation 1 was a panel with Terry Ryan, Todd Sanders, Kevin Schmidt, and Liz Fredrick. The first question out of the gate was “what is up with html5 vs flash”. Interrupting the Adobe people there I got on my soap box that Adobe isn’t Flash, it is just one tool in the toolbox. Long story short – as I will talk about HTML5 vs Flash later – things went well and the Android folks asked great questions with very frank answers returned.
Crazy rush off to Max and sadly missed the BBQ itself.
Arriving in LA the festivities started and continued into the great community summit the next day. Community Summit is no secret but only available for community leaders. If you want to join then start leading a user group or become an ACP. Glazing over what happened at Summit presentation 2 went down pretty well.
Only thing that got me upset was having a phone robbed from me at the community summit. No I didn’t get my phone taken, but – listen up motorola guys! – I totally deserved that phone and had barely stepped out of the room. Robbed.
Festivities continue and we are now into Day 1 of Max.
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October 11th,2011
Development
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3 Comments
Hey look at that!
I added into Tour De Flex an example of my Rotten Tomatoes AS3 API. If you are looking to pull movie details this API is VASTLY simpler to use compared to the Netflix AS3 API that I also keep up.
Hope you enjoy it! Feel free to let me know what you think!
A good friend of mine, Antonio Holguin, inspired me to write this blog post when he wanted a good, customized busy indicator for a new application that he is creating – and he wanted to know what the heck I did with Queue Manager. If you’ve seen my Queue Manager application you’ve probably noticed that I have a custom busy indicator that looks like an “N” as it’s loading (Designed by Dimi Arhontidis).
In this post I’m going to show you a class that I made after studying the Flex “BusyIndicator” class. Adobe has spent a great amount of time creating a great Busy Indicator, however I didn’t feel that the BusyIndicator was easily customizable, so I changed that.
Below is my code and some implementations.
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