FREContextInitializer and FREContextFinalizer in C

March 10, 2014 | by | 3 Comments

So you already know that, in order to make calls from your AIR app into native code, you need an Extension Context. One of the Extension Context roles is to tell AIR what native functionality is available for calling from ActionScript and this happens during the Extension Context initialization. This post will show you how this is done in C - you can use that in your C, C++ or Objective-C code. Read More

Categories: AIR Native Extensions.
Tags: Adobe AIR, AIR C API, C, FREContext, and Native Extension.

Native Extension Context Initializer and Finalizer

March 6, 2014 | by | No Comments

Do you remember the first call AIR makes when your AIR Native Extension is loaded in memory?

It's not a test. I'll even let you have a sneak peek, in case you've forgotten: when your ANE is first loaded, AIR calls its Extension Initializer: have a peek at what it looks like in C and in Java. Shortly after that the Extension Context is created. Read More

Categories: AIR Native Extensions.
Tags: Adobe AIR, extension context, finalizer, Initializer, and Native Extension.

How to send events from Java to ActionScript

March 5, 2014 | by | No Comments

When we looked at how native code and ActionScript communicate in a native extension, we saw that native code is mostly called and talked to and has a limited number of ways to respond or send data back. These are:

  1. Returning a FREResult object from a call to FREFunction.
  2. Using output parameters in a FREFunction.
  3. Sending an event to ActionScript.

In this article we are focusing on number 3: how events are sent from Java to ActionScript. Read More

Categories: AIR Native Extensions.
Tags: Adobe AIR, Android, java, and Native Extension.

Keeping your C native code reusable and independent of AIR

March 4, 2014 | by | No Comments

When you make a native extension using the AIR C API, your native code tends to have two parts:

  • one that's concerned with exposing functionality in a way that AIR can call, in other words, dependent on the AIR C API;
  • functional part, which deals with the platform-specific stuff. This part of your code doesn't (and shouldn't) care about whether it's used in an AIR native extension, a purely native app or something else.

Ideally you want to keep the dependency between these two parts one-directional: the AIR-concerned part should depend on the functional part, but the functional part should not know about and depend on AIR. If you decide to reuse your, say camera or speech recognition functionality, in another project that's not AIR-related , you don't want to force that to include the AIR C API.

So, what happens if you need to dispatch an event from the functional part of your code? Say, the camera refused to start or the speech processor is ready with results and you want you alert AIR to this... Read More

Categories: AIR Native Extensions.
Tags: Adobe AIR, AIR C API, iOS, Mac OS, objective-c, and Windows.

Extension Initializer and Finalizer in C

February 25, 2014 | by | No Comments

The Extension Initializer and Finalizer are the entry and exit points to your native extension. They are also two of the ingredients that make your extension known to the world and make it distinguishable from other extensions in an app. This is why they need to have unique names. Their signatures however need to be exactly as prescribed by AIR. Today we look at what these are in the AIR C API.

Read More

Categories: AIR Native Extensions.
Tags: Adobe AIR, AIR C API, iOS, Mac OS, Native Extension, and Windows.

Do you need a copy of FlashRuntimeExtensions.h in your project?

February 24, 2014 | by | No Comments

If you've ended up on this page, you are probably already familiar with what goes into an ANE for iOS and an ANE for Mac OS. You also know that one of the main ingredients for these is the AIR SDK and its interface for these two platforms: the AIR C API.

Now, when you try to include that in your iOS or Mac OS native library, Xcode helpfully asks you whether you want the API's header file, FlashRuntimeExtensions.h, copied into your project. What should you do?

04 xcode project Read More

Categories: AIR Native Extensions.
Tags: Adobe AIR, AIR C API, and Native Extension.

How to add a native extension to your app

February 20, 2014 | by | No Comments

We have so far established what you need to set in a native extension, in order for it to be distinguishable from other native extensions when used in an app. We also saw that you need to set that in the extension descriptor file.

Now let's have a look at how a native extension is used in an app and what you need to set in the app to help AIR find and load the native extension. Read More

Categories: AIR Native Extensions.
Tags: Adobe AIR, ANE, app, extension descriptor, and Native Extension.