Flash question for Devs

Hello Developers,

WAY back in the day (about 2005 or 2005) i created a couple of VERY simple games in Flash. I believe it was while Flash was still a part of Macromedia (flash 8 or MX i believe)

It was programmed using VERY basic actionscript (onMouseRelease goto frame x) and some motion tweening.

Im confident i could recreate the app today if i tried but im wondering if the flash builder that is used to create Adobe AIR apps will be as easy to work with as the older versions of Flash. will the actionscript be very similar to the old version (maybe with new features but the old actionscript still in there) or is it a completely new type of actionscript that is incompatible with the old?

Originally Posted by offthahorseceo

Hello Developers,

WAY back in the day (about 2005 or 2005) i created a couple of VERY simple games in Flash. I believe it was while Flash was still a part of Macromedia (flash 8 or MX i believe)

It was programmed using VERY basic actionscript (onMouseRelease goto frame x) and some motion tweening.

Im confident i could recreate the app today if i tried but im wondering if the flash builder that is used to create Adobe AIR apps will be as easy to work with as the older versions of Flash. will the actionscript be very similar to the old version (maybe with new features but the old actionscript still in there) or is it a completely new type of actionscript that is incompatible with the old?

ActionScript is now up to version 3. My app is the first that I've written for this platform but given that 7 years has passed (an eternity in technological history) you can bet that you are comparing apples to oranges. The best approach to finding out about the current development environment is to visit the RIM website and download some sample projects:

Tablet OS SDK for Adobe AIR Development Resources

Cool thanks.

Oh man, i didnt know you had to pay for flashbuilder

Originally Posted by offthahorseceo

Cool thanks.

Oh man, i didnt know you had to pay for flashbuilder

I use Flash Builder but there are free alternatives. Go to the url that I gave you and click the link to the official developers' forum at the top-right corner of the page. Search for "flash builder alternative" or some-such and you will find lots of discussions on the topic.

thanks for the help.

i will report back

A better place to ask is Tablet OS SDK for Adobe AIR - BlackBerry Support Community Forums as it's specifically for Flash development on PB.

You can use either Flash Builder 4.6, Flash Professional CS5.5 or one of the free alternatives to package and deploy your app. Note that only Flash Pro has support for timeline scripts. There are free trial versions of both Flash Pro and Flash Builder on Adobe's web site.

You *should* even be able to use your old, existing Flash version to generate the .swf, then package it up into a signed .bar using just the AIR & PB command-line tools.

Or you can use WebWorks to create an HTML5 app which just embeds your .swf like on any other page.

man, so if i could track down the old swf file that in itself would be able to converted into an app?

also, if i write it using the timeline version of flash, that can be exported as an app for a playbook for example?

I found IT! apparently someone made a mirror of the old geocities website before they took it down

Originally Posted by Innovatology

A better place to ask is Tablet OS SDK for Adobe AIR - BlackBerry Support Community Forums as it's specifically for Flash development on PB.

You can use either Flash Builder 4.6, Flash Professional CS5.5 or one of the free alternatives to package and deploy your app. Note that only Flash Pro has support for timeline scripts. There are free trial versions of both Flash Pro and Flash Builder on Adobe's web site.

You *should* even be able to use your old, existing Flash version to generate the .swf, then package it up into a signed .bar using just the AIR & PB command-line tools.

Or you can use WebWorks to create an HTML5 app which just embeds your .swf like on any other page.

speaking from experience, as he says, you MUST use the command line packager to package and sign your bar.

otherwise, it corrupts the SWF into a white screen. Annoying.

ok, last thing please

i have tracked down my .swf file .ill probably remake it using a newer version of flash since alot has changed in 7 years.

i have created a blackberry-tablet.xml file and am using temporary icon and slash images. i have looked up how to package using command line and its working until it gets to the appname-app.xml file

i think the issue is that i tried to create my own xml file for this swf, and if i remember correctly, any swf file created usually had an xml file to go with it.

is there any way around this?

i have started creating the file again from scratch. this time will hopefully be smoother with higher resolution graphics.

Is there a command line method to convert from a flash file to an android app, and then back to a blackberry app?

i have both android sdk and playbook sdk on my pc

EDIT: NVM, i see that you can publish staright to an apk right from the flash CS5 program, how awesome is that?!

ok i got the preliminary animations down, and most of the scripting. I succesfully exported a new SWF file, and even packaged it into a .bar file using generic icon, splash screens, and blackberry-tablet.xml

i went to sideload it to my playbook to test it and ddpb is giving me an error: BarFileUnsignedError

do sideloaded apps still need to be signed?

i think i had requested and gotten some signing keys last year right after the playbook released. i never installed or used them though, will they have expired?

You need to sign anything that is loaded to your playbook. There is a special type of signing key called a debug token that can be used for testing your app. This site is not the best place (by any means) to get answers to your questions. Since you are now a developer you should join the discussion in the official RIM development forums. But before you do that you need to download the documentation for using signing keys and debug tokens.

Ok ill sign up over there. Thanks for the help so far. It turns out i HAD ordered some signing keys, but i forgot the PIN i used when i ordered them. So i ordered new ones.

Thanks again.