We've been asked to make a simple app for a tablet (originally an iPad2, but most likely an Android tablet) or a smartphone/hybrid (something like the Samsung Galaxy Note springs to mind) so we've been learning all about tool-chains and cross compiling. Ideally we'd have liked to have stuck with Flash/CS5.5 and AIR, which is ideal for cool kids with the latest smartphones. Creating an app in Flash CS5.5 is a doddle and creating an .apk file is as easy as hitting "publish". Copy the .apk file onto your phone via a usb lead, then use My Files to install the app. If your phone doesn't already have it installed, the app will prompt you to download Adobe AIR (one-time only).
But this is where things started to wrong for us!
We'd only got as far as installing the app when a message popped up to say that our handset wasn't compatible with AIR...
It seems that many smartphones (and tablets) on the market are still running ARM6 processors (such as our Galaxy Ace handsets) and AIR doesn't run on these. We could just ignore these, concentrate on making apps for handsets nearer the top-end of the market and go back to Flash. But there's something about cutting out a large proportion of users, many of whom will be getting Arm6-based handsets (because they are free) on two-year contracts, that doesn't sit right with us. So we've been looking into AIR-free compilers....
It's been a bit of a nightmare!
There have been loads of suggestions, tips and recommendations and we're indebted to the guys at dotBrighton for keeping us going. One thing we're keen on doing is keeping CPU usage to a minimum (with a view to extending battery life while running our apps). Of all the set-ups we've seen, haXe NME looked like it offered what we were looking for - and, it uses an AS3 type syntax with familiar libraries, so the learning curve shouldn't be too steep.
It took over 16 hours to get haXe installed and working properly. There are no easy-start guides on the 'net - we should really have been a bit more organised, written down exactly what we did and how we did it and created one for others to follow. But the truth is, it was so convoluted and we ended up downloading massive 600Mb+ files two and three times (first manually, then allowing the installer to try, then uninstalling and trying again) that we'd only end up with a guide on how not to set up a programming environment!
Something still doesn't ring true that we've used up over 20Gb in disk space just getting this lot working...
But in the end, after installing Java runtimes, Java SDK, Android SDK, Android NPK, Flash Develop, haXe NME, C++, Visual Studio Express, Cygwin and a whole heap of other crap we didn't fully undesrstand, we managed to get and environment working that allowed us to compile the Actuate example from the haXe NME website
Here's our end result. The video shows up to fifty sprites (filled shapes) of differing degrees of transparency with a couple of pngs we added ourselves, to try out the png support.
[video here]
With alpha-support for pngs, and the ability to draw moving objects at different depths, things are quite exciting. A tile-based sprite-blitted game can't be too far away, surely?
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