Flex group meeting - AIR 2.5 and mobile
Sefi will host this month's Flex group meeting, and will focus on the pre-release of Adobe AIR 2.5 platform and "Burrito" Flash Builder.
We will have a short overview presentation of what's new, followed by a showcase on how a simple game can be implemented once in a common lib project and used in multiple versions / platforms - be it the AIR desktop, FLEX web or Android mobile.
Main focus will be on the Android mobile version of the game, to show how basic things are done a bit differently when developing for mobile.
See you all there!
Comments
Heya,
Well, here are the session recordings.
They were made with the laptop mic, so I apologize for the bad quality...
Part 1:
Part 2:
Part 3:
It was a great presentation. Thanks for uploading it!
Do you have the source files of the sample projects you showed in the presentation?
I have the code, but am reluctant to post it.
I much rather you create it yourself with the on hands session recording... :D
Hi Sefi,
thanks for the great lecture. It took a time ... but now I have question:)
We spoke about developement of mobile applications. It's critical that application
will be friendly and easy and responnsive, but ... what about multithreading?
Is it possible to develop mobile applications in Flex where UI will be separated thread?
Vlad
There is no multi-threading on the flash player level as of yet, and so - Either with Flex, AIR or mobile applications - there is no option to have the UI run on a different thread. Hopefully, multi-threading will be added in future versions of the flash player.
You can write code that spans over a few frames using callLater or Timers and that way to achieve pseudo-threads, for example a loop that runs for a million iterations, or print spooling. This will not make the UI run on a different thread, however, just means to run heavy code more efficiently within the limitations of the flash player.
Hope that answers your question,
Sefi
let's take an example of Sefi. You want the application will be updated by download full data over products (prices, calories, recommendations etc.), and it's big, or connection is slow. It's pretty complicated to pause network session in the middle, especially if user keeps moving his finger on UI objects:)
Well, you could still download data in chunks, just not time based chunks.
You could first download the data for the shop names only. if that's big as well, I'd imagine you can use paging of some sort.
Once the user clicks on a shop, you could download all the shop's categories, and again for category items.
Or, you could download in the background chunks of data, i.e.:
1. download shops names
2. while user goes over the names eagerly try to download all the shops' categories in the background so you wont have the user waiting once he selects a shop. You can do the same for category items.
The idea is, assuming the work is big, to break it down.
The resolution or the size of the chunks is not relevant to the discussion since it depends on the specific case.
In any case, unless you download all the data the user will have to wait for it. For example if you download eagerly in the background and the user selects a shop you didn't download in the background yet - You have no choice but to stop whatever it is you are doing and request the data for that specific shop - and the user has no choice but to wait.
You can try to optimize it with favorite shops, either user selected or keeping history - the options are endless. Fact remains - if the data is not there, the app will have to go get it, and the user will have to wait...
And that is not specific to mobile applications, btw...
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