Leonardo França » Nokia

Check if your site is compatible with mobile devices in Adobe Device Central CS5

Leonardo França — Wed, 08 Sep 2010 06:08:11 +0000

nsurprisingly the growing use of mobile devices like smartphones, tablets, etc. With the great increase in access to 3G data network, we have a new class of users that need special attention. Did your site is compatible with mobile devices? if not, it should be because the mobile user can be just who will purchase your product or service.

Did your site is compatible with mobile devices? if not, it should be because the mobile user can be just who will purchase your product or service.

The major banks have already realized this and most already have a version of its Internet banking to mobile devices, including to perform operations that you normally do on the site to pay bills, view balances etc..
Adobe Device Central software is a part of Adobe Creative Suite family that aims to emulate the operation of mobile devices on your desktop. It is mainly used to test the functionality of Flash Lite on smartphones. But it can also be used to test your html pages and simulate the operation of any mobile device.

To open a page or site in Adobe Device Central CS5, just follow these steps:

After opening the program, go to “Device Profiles” and click “Browse Devices”. A list of profiles of models of smartphones, select a few for your tests (right-click and ask for the “Add to Test Devices”)
Should see the selected device and its technical specification. Now just go to “File-> Open File …” to open a file or “File-> Open URL …” to open a site directly. In my case, ask to open the url of my blog on Nokia 5230:
Adobe Device Central CS5

You also have the option to call the Adobe Device Central Adobe Dreamweaver CS5 directly by, just ask “File-> Preview in Browser-> Device Central”.
On my blog, I use the plugin WordPress Mobile Edition which formats the blog to be accessed on mobile devices.

Adobe Device Central is included in the following Creative Suite 5 products:

More:
http://www.adobe.com/products/creativesuite/devicecentral/?promoid=ZALP

Recommended Books:

Using Accelerometer on Flash Lite with Nokia Platform Services

Leonardo França — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 15:17:39 +0000

Accelerometer is a motion sensor, one device responsible for measuring the relative positions of the axes x, y and z, ie, calculate the acceleration of the object. Today it is used for a variety of utilities such as: air bags, vibration measurement, measurement of inclination, smartphones, video games etc.

The accelerometer is used today is used for a variety of utilities such as: air bags, vibration measurement, measurement of inclination, smartphones, video games etc.

Flash Player 10.1 (only for mobile) and Flash Lite 4.0 have access to the device's accelerometer. I'm anxious to get their hands on a Nokia N8 to test new features Flash Lite 4.0, but this hard. Meanwhile, we are developing with Flash Lite 3.0 and 3.1.
Nokia has created a library especially for working with Flash Lite feature that gives access to natively are not possible as access to the accelerometer, GPS, calendar, contacts etc.

Nokia has created a library especially for working with Flash Lite feature that gives access to natively are not possible as access to the accelerometer, GPS, calendar, contacts etc.

I'll show a simple example of using the accelerometer with Flash Lite 3.0 and Nokia Platform Services.
Download the library Nokia and then save the directory under your operating system:

Nokia Platform Services only works on devices running Symbian S60 5th.

Mac - /Users//Library/Application/Support/Adobe/Flash CS5/en/Configuration/Classes/
Windows Vista - /Users//AppData/Local/Adobe/Flash CS4/en/Configuration/Classes.
Windows XP - //Local Settings/Application Data/Adobe/Flash CS5/en/Configuration/Classes/

We will start our first example:

Create a file of type ActionScript 2.0 and ask them to compile for Flash Lite 3.0 or 3.1. Or you can create directly from Adobe Device Central CS5.
Create a symbol of type MovieClip and give it the instance name of "ball_mc".
Create three text fields of type dynamic, therein are shown the positions x, y and z.
We must have a stage like this:
Stage for test Accelerometer

This done, let's now part of programming:
We will start setting the stage for not changing the size of the application if the window is resized. The "DisableKeypadCompatibilityMode" is for use in smartphones with touch screens, if not used, the smartphone will automatically add the virtual keys corresponding to a non-touchscreen smartphone.

PLAIN TEXT

ACTIONSCRIPT:

Stage.scaleMode = "noScale";
Stage.align = "LT";
 
fscommand2("DisableKeypadCompatibilityMode");
fscommand2("FullScreen", "true");

Now let's import the classes made by Nokia and use the Device class and disable the autorotation of the application.

PLAIN TEXT

ACTIONSCRIPT:

import com.nokia.lib.Service;
import com.nokia.lib.Device;
 
var deviceObject:Object = new Device();
deviceObject.DisableAutoRotation(true);

Service will use the class by passing the parameter sensor and then passing the criterion for a search the coordinates of the accelerometer.

PLAIN TEXT

ACTIONSCRIPT:

var sensors = new Service("Service.Sensor", "ISensor");
var inParam = {SearchCriterion:"AccelerometerAxis"};
var outParams = sensors.FindSensorChannel(inParam);

Will return a series of values we use to "advise" the smartphone that our application will be updated with every change in value of the coordinates of the accelerometer through a callback method.

PLAIN TEXT

ACTIONSCRIPT:

var channelInfo = outParams.ReturnValue;
var channelId = channelInfo[0].ChannelId;
var contextType = channelInfo[0].ContextType;
var quantity = channelInfo[0].Quantity;
var channelType = channelInfo[0].ChannelType;
var location = channelInfo[0].Location;
var vendorId = channelInfo[0].VendorId;
var dataItemSize = channelInfo[0].DataItemSize;
var channelDataTypeId = channelInfo[0].ChannelDataTypeId;
var channelParams = {ChannelId:channelId, ContextType:contextType, Quantity:quantity, ChannelType:channelType, Location:location, VendorId:vendorId, DataItemSize:dataItemSize, ChannelDataTypeId:channelDataTypeId};
 
var inParams = {ListeningType:"ChannelData", ChannelInfoMap:channelParams};
sensors.RegisterForNotification(inParams, callBack);
function callBack(transactionID:String, eventID:String, outParam:Object) 
{
    if (outParam.ErrorCode == 0) 
    {
        var channelData = outParam.ReturnValue;
        txtX.text = channelData.XAxisData;
        txtY.text = channelData.YAxisData;
        txtZ.text = channelData.ZAxisData;
        
        xSpeed -= channelData.XAxisData/NOISE;
        ySpeed += channelData.YAxisData/NOISE;
    }
}

Then just update the x and y coordinates with the values and xSpeed ySpeed in our MovieClip. Made available at the source code to define how far the MovieClip can walk, or only in the area of our application.
DOWNLOAD SOURCE

To learn more:
http://www.forum.nokia.com/Develop/Other_Technologies/Flash_lite/
http://library.forum.nokia.com/index.jsp?topic=/Flash_Lite_Developers_Library/GUID-46EABDC1-37CB-412A-ACAD-1A1A9466BB68.html

Recommended Books:

Options for Mobile Development

Leonardo França — Thu, 19 Aug 2010 21:07:56 +0000

The mobile market is one of the fastest growing lately, and with it the demand for applications for this growing niche also bringing one more option for anyone who is a developer and new business opportunities. You developer who likes to keep up, you know exactly what I'm talking about. In this article I gathered some links that those who want to start with mobile development in at least three different platform in which I had lately demands.

The mobile market is one of the fastest growing lately, and with it the demand for applications for this growing niche also bringing one more option for anyone who is a developer and new business opportunities

Among the platforms available for mobile development, we can highlight:

Java with JME
Nokia Qt, besides being able to use WRT(Web RunTime)
Flash Lite
Android SDK from Google with the addition of Adobe AIR and Flash Player 10.1
IPhone

'll Comment a little bit of each:

Java with JME
JME (Java Micro Edition) is the version that Sun offers for you to program in Java for mobile devices. It offers an enormous range of API's that were made specifically. Has a very complete documentation and several examples. I leave a link how to set up your environment for development JME.

Nokia Qt
Nokia offers Qt, Cross-plaftorm application and UI framework, with specific libraries for mobile devices (such as QTMobility). You program in C++ and there is an interface language like MXML. Has its own IDE and has emulators for Symbian S60, 40 and Symbian^3 beyond Maemo and Meego.

Adobe Flash Lite
Adobe Flash Lite still has space on the market, with a different version of the Flash player with some features specific to mobile devices. The development environment is to own Adobe Flash Professional and Adobe Device Central.

Google Android
Google offers for the Android platform a set of SDK's and emulators for the different versions of its operating system with each passing day it becomes more popular. It has a plugin for you to program in Eclipse, the Android Development Tools(ADT). The language used is Java. From Android 2.2 (Froyo) you have the option to create applications in Adobe AIR, the AIR runtime is installed on the device and you create the application using Adobe Flash Professional (which has an extension to create the files .apk) or Adobe Flash Builder.

Apple IPhone
Who wants to program for iPhone, ipad and the like, Apple provides an SDK. You use the Objective-C language, derived from C, and some interesting libraries developed for working with muiltitouch like Cocoa. We'll find a list of frameworks.

Well, we have options, it behooves us to analyze only that can best serve our customers. Should stay something about Windows Phone 7 because it seems to me very promising and deserves attention too.

Nokia Qt, C++, Symbian, Meego
Qt for Symbian
S60 (Software Platform): Qt, Nokia 5800 Xpressmusic, S60, Nokia Pc Suite, Python for S60, the Core Pocket Media Player, Nokia E75
Beginning Nokia Apps Development: Using MeeGo, Mobile QT and OpenSymbian
Porting to the Symbian Platform: Open Mobile Development in C/C++ (Symbian Press)

Adobe Flash Lite
AdvancED Flash on Devices: Mobile Development with Flash Lite and Flash 10
Professional Flash Lite Mobile Development (Wrox Programmer to Programmer)
Foundation Flash Applications for Mobile Devices

Android
Hello, Android: Introducing Google's Mobile Development Platform (Pragmatic Programmers)
Android Application Development: Programming with the Google SDK
Professional Android 2 Application Development (Wrox Programmer to Programmer)

IPhone
Beginning iPhone 3 Development: Exploring the iPhone SDK
iPhone Programming: The Big Nerd Ranch Guide (Big Nerd Ranch Guides)
The iPhone Developer's Cookbook: Building Applications with the iPhone 3.0 SDK (2nd Edition)

Windows Phone 7
Learning Windows Phone Programming
Windows Mobile Game Development: Building games for the Windows Phone and other mobile devices (Expert's Voice in .NET)
Programming Windows Phone 7

Flash Lite is dead?

Leonardo França — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 03:11:00 +0000

One of the questions you do lately is the possible death of Flash Lite. We have the Flash Player 10.1 optimized for mobile and Adobe AIR 2.5 for Android, and with that Flash Lite would be in their final days.
I've read articles that argued that Adobe did not know that capitalize on the success that Macromedia has with Flash Lite in Japan and began to give priority for mobile systems only now. This can be a little truth, but Adobe does not mess around, now this with full force for a variety of devices, not only mobile.
Now our question which gave title to the article, along with Flash Player 10.1, Adobe released Flash Lite 4.0 also, being a version of Flash Player for devices with limited processing resources and memory but with support for ActionScript 3.0. See the list of features available here.
For one thing, each day brings more smartphones come with Android 2.2 (Froyo), which officially supports the Flash Player 10.1 and Adobe AIR 2.5. Also, we're seeing with Android smartphones (earlier) being updated with Froyo. That is, based on Flash contents tends to grow with these major smartphones. On the other hand so far, have only a smartphone officially announced with Flash Lite 4.0, the Nokia N8 and possibly Nokia C7, the question remains, still worthwhile to develop content for Flash Lite?
And my answer is YES, even for Flash Lite 3.0 or 3.1(ActionScript 2.0) especially for Nokia devices and why I say this. Let's see some facts:

Nokia is still world leader on mobile devices and how it has always been an innovator(was the first to put an internal antenna), not let that lead get away so easy
The operating system Symbian is still the most used for mobile systems, and Nokia betting on Symbian will continue with the Meego(Linux-based)
We have an extensive list of phones Nokia that has Flash Lite 2.0 or 3.0 , about 400 million around the world, many now arriving in Brazil
Sony and Samsung also has a good range of handsets with Flash Lite
Is starting to grow the number of applications in Portuguese on OVI Store, highlight for MTV Ao Vivo, the Terra TV and VEJA São Paulo
Nokia has created a library especially to increase the capabilities of Flash Lite
Adobe Device Central CS5 offers a fairly complete for you to test your application in various mobile devices
Nokia and Adobe were the first to contribute to the project Open Screen Project - one content, several devices

So in conclusion, is a market for development and yet it is worth studying (and remember) Actionscript 2.0. I believe that we will have two or three years of life for Flash Lite.

Recommended Books:

Increasing the power of Flash Lite with the S60 Platform Services

Leonardo França — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 23:21:11 +0000

Nokia has created a set of classes to be used in conjunction with Flash Lite, the Flash Lite Developer's Library, allowing you to create flash content for different devices designed to platform S60.
O S60 Platform Services aims, to increase the power of Flash Lite, giving access to resources that natively, are not supported in Flash Lite still.
A API Services is supported on devices with Flash Lite 3.0 and Symbian S60 5th Edition including Nokia N97.
The following are some examples of uses of the API Services..

Access and launch applications on a device using the AppManager Service API
Access and manage calendar information using the Calendar Service API
Access and manage information about contacts using the Contacts Service API
Access and manage information about landmarks using the Landmarks Service API
Access device logging events using the Logging Service API
Access device location information and perform location-based calculations using the Location Service API
Access information about media files stored on a device using the Media Management Service API
Send, retrieve, and manage messages such as SMS and MMS using the Messaging Service API
Access data from the physical sensors of a device using the Sensor Service API
Access and modify system information on a device using the SystemInfo Service API

Another nice example:
Accessing GPS with Nokia Platform Services
http://vimeo.com/7343089

to learn:
http://www.forum.nokia.com/Technology_Topics/Web_Technologies/Flash_Lite/QuickStart.xhtml
Using Platform Services
http://library.forum.nokia.com/index.jsp?topic=/Flash_Lite_Developers_Library/GUID-46EABDC1-37CB-412A-ACAD-1A1A9466BB68.html

Flash Lite Developer’s Library
http://www.forum.nokia.com/info/sw.nokia.com/id/43ca0681-c8c6-4684-ad71-c4ac41f3ee4f/Flash_Lite_Developers_Library.html