Android Development - Include Flash? - android

I need to develop an app for a website. The problem is that on the site are Flash videos.
Is there a way to integrate the Flash in my Android app?
Thank you!

It's recommended that you don't as Android is phased out as mentioned. Depending on the complexity, it would be best to replace flash videos with HTML5 where possible.
If you insist on it however, it's possible as long as the user has the Flash plugin installed using a WebView:
How to Enable Flash Plugin in Webview?
Also note that the flash plugin is fairly limited - it has performance and sound sync issues and does not respond to clicks and key presses like the desktop version of flash does (Though oddly, the old Windows Mobile version was quite performant and had no key or mouse issues... huh)

Related

Playing webview with flash without installing flash from the market

I am trying to build an application where the webview should handle flash contents.
As most of us are aware of, Adobe has announced it will not support Flash Player browser plugin for Android 4.1 and onward.
Without installing Flash, is it possible to realize it?
I did my part of researches and came along with Captive Runtime where you can have the flash package inside your application, without the need to install flash.
My question is, is it possible to build an android app without using Flash Builder, and have the flash package inside?
Is Adobe Air the only solution in my case?
Thanks in advance!
Adobe AIR is the one and only hope. You don't need FLASH here in this context. Make sure you have the Flash Builder 4.6 to build the application, test it with the inbuilt emulator to see how it all goes.

Use PhoneGap + HTML5 and an Embedded Flash Movie

I wanted to know if it is possible to do the following:
Build a mobile app using HTML5, CSS, and JavaScript
Embed a Flash game (SWF) on one of the pages of the application
Wrap with PhoneGap, and deploy on Android an iOS
Keep the Flash game's functionality
I am considering doing this for an upcoming mobile project, and considering my options. I can build in all Flash, or I can build using HTML5 and just embed the Flash on one page. HTML5 would be much faster and cost-effective, and could accomplish what I need for the app's UI and everything else. The thing is that I need to incorporate this Flash game into the site. Will that mean that I have to build the entire application in Flash in order to accomplish this?
Thanks
Are you the last person on Earth to hear that Flash doesn't work on iOS?
Well, I have news for you: Flash doesn't work on iOS ;-)
You can use Adobe's CS5 tools to compile your Flash game as a native iOS app (which is probably your best bet if you're determined to go the Flash route) but you can't display a SWF on an iPhone, regardless of how it is embedded.
Embedding the SWF using PhoneGap may be a semi-viable solution on Android (at least for some handset models), but the performance is unlikely to be that great, and since Adobe have officially abandoned Flash on the mobile, making Flash games for Android is not a very future-proof strategy at this point.
You'd be better off trying to create your game using a pure HTML5 game development library such as ImpactJS - the tools are not quite as rich as what you get with Adobe, but the cross-platform support and future outlook is much better.
Here's a nice table of different cross-platform JS game engine solutions that somebody put together: https://github.com/bebraw/jswiki/wiki/Game-Engines
For simple animations You can also convert flash to HTML 5 (with Abobe tools , form google html5 convert dosen't ) and than put it in web view any platform Windows Phone, Win store.....
html 5 will work even without cordoba or phone gap

Testing Android browser without the emulator?

I'm working on a javascript framework that generates webkit browser pages which emulate a native app for Android & iPhone.
I'm using an iPhone emulator (iBBPhone -- very nice) to see how my pages would look on the iPhone and iPad. I was curious if there was something besides the Android SDK phone emulator that would simulate the Android browsing experience. I'm using desktop Google Chrome right now as a "pretend Android" browser but I'm not sure how alike they really are.
The Android emulator that ships with the SDK is a bit too slow to fire up on my box to be of great use in what I'm doing (even when starting up a saved image), and I was curious if there was anything else out there that simulates Android browsing. Thanks!
I think this Firefox plugin will let you display the site as it would show up in several different types of browsers. I know it supports iPhone so I imagine it will do Android as well. This page also talks about some other Firefox plug-ins that may be useful to you.
Chrome has a nice add-on named Ripple that does the job nicely I've found. http://ripple.tinyhippos.com/
These guys pretend to meet this need. Might be a good idea to check it out.
http://www.browserstack.com/mobile-browser-emulator

Using Adobe AIR to develop Android mobile applications

Can anyone give a comparative information between developing Android mobile applications using Eclipse SDK and Adobe AIR?
Kindly share your opinion, anyone who has already having any experience on developing Android mobile applications using Adobe AIR.
I have gone through articles on developing Adobe AIR but wanted to know if anyone found it useful. I am aware that Android mobile applications developed using Adobe AIR is supported for Android 2.1 and 2.2.
Thanks in advance.
I will do my best to answer your question, though it's a little broad (if you could provide specifics on the information you need, I'd be happy to add more detail).
Firstly, there's a ton of information both from Adobe and from the Flash/Flex community on developing for AIR for Android. You can develop for AIR for Android using Flash and the Flash IDE or using Flex and the Flash Builder IDE currently in public preview on Adobe Labs (you can do straight ActionScript as well if you like).
One of the benefits of using AIR is that you can leverage your existing skillset in Flash/Flex/ActionScript rather than having to learn a new language. Another benefit is that yu can reuse code for existing Flash/Flex/AIR applications you may have built. Another benefit, and the one Sheikh mentions above is that Adobe is working on making AIR a cross-platform mobile runtime. If you search you will already find articles from Adobe and the community about people running AIR applications on the Playbook (the simulator anyway, since the device isn't released yet) and even using the preview Packager for iPhone to compile their applications to iPhone.
Although I haven't worked with AIR, but what I feel AIR is for, is cross compatibility.
Its like you're not building for Android, you're building for AIR. and since Android supports AIR, your applications will run on Android device.
In future more Mobile OS will start supporting AIR, so if you code an app for AIR, there will be a huge possibility that your same code runs on different platforms like Android, Windows Phone 7, iPhone (perhaps :-P). Thus, it will be saving a lot of coding effort for coders.
I have discovered that the cross-platform compatibility for AIR applications is quite good except for a few caveats:
1) User input boxes. They are generally not handled well in AIR applications. The popup keyboard can hide the input box, which it generally does not do with native JAVA apps for Android.
2) Real-time games. AIR for Mobile is SLOW. You may be disappointed if you try to develop any sort of real-time software.
3) Socket communication. This is my current peeve. I created a simple chat application in Flash and did some speed tests. This is in preparation for creating multi-player games for mobile devices. On the PC, the application can run over 200 messages per second to the server and get responses. On the AIR for Mobile, both on the iPhone and Android, it is about 11 messages per second max - and the app is doing nothing BUT sending and receiving the data strings. Add a layer of game play and the speed limitations could be crippling. This means real-time games may suffer if you need faster communications. It's plenty fast enough for turn-based or games that don't require lots of updates.
Basically, the cross-platform compatibility is nice. Just think about whether your particular project might be harmed by the speed issues as well as potentially poor handling of user input boxes. Do some testing.

'Flash for Android' vs 'AIR for Android' - differences?

Froyo and Flash Player are coming to our phones.
In the Adobe PreRelease programs we can find AIR beta for Froyo and Eclair. With that, I can develop a Flash app and export it to my phone.
So, is AIR player the Flash player? o_O
I can't understand what differences are between AIR and Flash on Android.
Can you help me? Thank you!
Flash and AIR work just the same on Android as they do on the PC - similar technologies, but Flash plays in a browser and AIR apps are used like native applications. In other words, to use an AIR app, you'll typically install it from the Google Market, and put a shortcut to it on your homescreen, then launch it and use it like any other application. Whereas for flash content, you'll follow a link or a bookmark, and see the content embedded within a web page.
Anyway the capabilities of the two engines are similar (AIR does basically all that Flash does, and adds on some extra features suitable for applications), but the difference is in the way you access and use the content.

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