No Adobe Flash support for Eclair!?!

[chris harper]

I kept reading about how one of the biggest news about eclair coming
out in 2010 is that support for Flash 10 (or ANY Flash for that
matter) will be built into it.

This does not appear to be the case for the fact that I download all
the latest source code for Eclair, built and installed Eclair onto my
development phone over the Christmas break and to my surprise/
disappointment there is absolutely no support for Flash when I try to
view with the browser. I tried plugin's and searching for missing .apk
installs for Flash but I found nothing.

Unless I am missing something (i.e. maybe a side tree build for
flash?) and if I did then I apologize but from what I can tell as of
now the Eclair build does and will not support flash.

If anyone knows ANYTHING on this topic on this please update for us.

Thank you

-Chris

[Mark Murphy]

chris harper wrote:
> I kept reading about how one of the biggest news about eclair coming
> out in 2010 is that support for Flash 10 (or ANY Flash for that
> matter) will be built into it.

1. Eclair came out in 2009.

2. AFAIK, nowhere credible was it written that Eclair would have support
for Flash 10 built into it.

> This does not appear to be the case for the fact that I download all
> the latest source code for Eclair, built and installed Eclair onto my
> development phone over the Christmas break and to my surprise/
> disappointment there is absolutely no support for Flash when I try to
> view with the browser. I tried plugin's and searching for missing .apk
> installs for Flash but I found nothing.

Flash is not open source.

Right now, the most that can reasonably be expected is for Flash to be
available from Adobe for Android OEMs to license and put on their
devices. HTC has already done this with the Hero, albeit for more of a
Flash Lite profile than a full Flash 10 implementation. This is not
significantly different than codecs for non-open-source media file
formats (e.g., WMA, WMV) being available for OEMs to license from
PacketVideo.

--
Mark Murphy (a Commons Guy)
http://commonsware.com | http://twitter.com/commonsguy

Android Consulting/App Development: http://commonsware.com/consulting

[chris harper]

Thank you Mark for the clarification it is greatly appreciated.
With so many different sources on the internet it is somewhat difficult to know what is actually available and what isn't.

One more question if you happen to know this. All I am simply trying to do is create a WebView (using android.webkit.Webview) and view a .swf file with it.

According to this article it is had been done and is possible:
http://www.flashmobileblog.com/2009/08/12/flash-development-with-android-part2/
 
But again like I stated before, after downloading the latest source code, building it, flashing it to my development phone and flash still not working I am having my doubts (and greatly wondering how this guy said it is working).

Do you know if this is even somewhat possible (maybe a FlashLite plugin I am missing or something?).

Or am just out of luck on this one.

Thank you
-Chris

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[Mark Murphy]

chris harper wrote:
> According to this article it is had been done and is possible:
> http://www.flashmobileblog.com/2009/08/12/flash-development-with-android-part2/

The very first sentence of that post:

"As we already know by now the HTC Hero supports Flash in the browser,
and by double tapping on Flash content it will be played in full screen
mode."

You will note that this says "HTC Hero". The HTC Hero is a device, for
which HTC licensed a Flash (Lite) implementation.

> But again like I stated before, after downloading the latest source
> code, building it, flashing it to my development phone and flash still
> not working I am having my doubts (and greatly wondering how this guy
> said it is working).

That is because he is referring to the HTC Hero.

> Do you know if this is even somewhat possible (maybe a FlashLite plugin
> I am missing or something?).

This presumably will work on an HTC Hero -- I haven't tried it. It will
not work on devices that did not license Flash (Lite) from Adobe. It
most definitely will not work from the Android open source tree, because

Flash is not open source.

--

Mark Murphy (a Commons Guy)
http://commonsware.com | http://twitter.com/commonsguy

Android App Developer Books: http://commonsware.com/books

[theSmith]

As Mark said, unless you have a Hero, which has flash built it, this
will not work.

On Dec 28, 1:38 pm, chris harper <ch393...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Thank you Mark for the clarification it is greatly appreciated.
> With so many different sources on the internet it is somewhat difficult to
> know what is actually available and what isn't.
>
> One more question if you happen to know this. All I am simply trying to do
> is create a WebView (using android.webkit.Webview) and view a .swf file with
> it.
>

> According to this article it is had been done and is possible:http://www.flashmobileblog.com/2009/08/12/flash-development-with-andr...

>
> But again like I stated before, after downloading the latest source code,
> building it, flashing it to my development phone and flash still not working
> I am having my doubts (and greatly wondering how this guy said it is
> working).
>
> Do you know if this is even somewhat possible (maybe a FlashLite plugin I am
> missing or something?).
>
> Or am just out of luck on this one.
>
> Thank you
> -Chris
>

> > android-develop...@googlegroups.com<android-developers%2Bunsu...@googlegroups.com>

[chris harper]

Ok. It is becoming clear now.

Flash is licensed per device. So even though you have different devices all running Android, only the ones that are licensed for Flash can implement it. Is that correct?

I didn't mention that I do have an HTC Hero (as well as my android development phone). It is running Firmware version 1.5.  
I also tried doing the WebView as stated in the article testing on this device and also got the same result as my android development phone when trying to view a .swf (a screen full of random characters).

From what you told me it sounds like I need to go down the road of continuing to test my WebView stub on my HTC Hero and maybe looking into why my flashlite plugin doesn't seem to be working with my WebView stub code?

Does that sound about right to you Mark?

Thank you again, this really does help me alot.

-Chris

--

[Mark Murphy]

chris harper wrote:
> Flash is licensed per device. So even though you have different devices
> all running Android, only the ones that are licensed for Flash can
> implement it. Is that correct?

Yup!

It is conceivable that Adobe could make a downloadable Flash client for
Android, but I'm skeptical they can pull that off. I think it will
require too many low-level hooks to perform properly.

However, I will be happy to be proven wrong on that point, someday.

> I didn't mention that I do have an HTC Hero (as well as my android
> development phone). It is running Firmware version 1.5.
> I also tried doing the WebView as stated in the article testing on this
> device and also got the same result as my android development phone when
> trying to view a .swf (a screen full of random characters).

Hmmmm...it's possible there was a minor firmware upgrade with the Hero
that changed the functionality.

> From what you told me it sounds like I need to go down the road of
> continuing to test my WebView stub on my HTC Hero and maybe looking into
> why my flashlite plugin doesn't seem to be working with my WebView stub
> code?
>
> Does that sound about right to you Mark?

Yes.

--
Mark Murphy (a Commons Guy)
http://commonsware.com | http://twitter.com/commonsguy

_The Busy Coder's Guide to *Advanced* Android Development_
Version 1.3 Available!

[chris harper]

Thank you.

I also have the HTC Hero (along with my development phone) I bought it for the reason to view Flash.

But I can not get my webview stub code to view flash content as specified in that article I referenced (specifically a .swf file I am trying to open on my sdcard).

All I get is a page with random characters displayed.

I think I might be missing a flashlite plugin or something?

[chris harper]

Mark, Mr theSmith?

Thank you for your input. You pointed me in the right direction.

I wrote that guy that did that article but he is out of office until Jan 4th. I would like to compare notes with him and get my code working on my HTC HERO to run my .swf file.

If I get mine working I'll post back and let you guys know as I believe Flash will start to become a bigger issue in 2010 with more development for android going on.

-Chris

--

[Sena Gbeckor-Kove]

Hi Mark,

Just a clarification, unless I'm worng. The HTC implementation is Flash 9. Not Flash Lite.

S

[Mark Murphy]

Sena Gbeckor-Kove wrote:
> Just a clarification, unless I'm worng. The HTC implementation is Flash 9. Not Flash Lite.

That's possible. It reportedly uses ActionScript 2.0, which I
interpreted as meaning Flash Lite, but I hadn't considered the
possibility that they ported an older Flash to Android.

--
Mark Murphy (a Commons Guy)
http://commonsware.com | http://twitter.com/commonsguy

Android Development Wiki: http://wiki.andmob.org

[Sena Gbeckor-Kove]

If you've flashed you Hero with somethign else you'll have removed the Flash Plugin. Unless you have a cracked ROM that includes Flash.

S

[chris harper]

Sena - I picked up a book on writing Flash content for mobile devices and from I understand from the book is that FlashLite is based off of Flash 9. They are essentially the same thing. Where anything written for Flash 9 (with actionscript 2) can be run in FlashLite. That is my current understanding between the two. There might be minor differences.

I did flash my HTC HERO about a month ago and that thought did cross my mind that maybe the FlashLite got messed up in the process. So my current thought process is to FLASH HTC's newest ROM onto my Hero:

http://www.htc.com/uk/SupportViewNews.aspx?dl_id=671&news_id=254

I think this will be my best bet for getting the most updated Flash from HTC onto my HERO and (hopefully if the moons align) be able to write a little WebView client to read .swf files.

-Chris

[Sena Gbeckor-Kove]

Hi Chris,

From what I kwow there are quite a few differences between Flash 9 and Flash Lite. A quick Google should fill you in.

You'll definitely need one of the standard Hero roms unless somebody has hacked the Flash files onto a custom rom. If you must have something more recent you might want to track down the Sense 2 rom. I know that runs on Hero. There are videos of it floating about. Or just wait, for 2 months for HTC to drop the official 2.x update.

I must say I'm intrigued as to why you want to create such a WebView when only Hero owners will be able to use it at present. Of course once Flash 10.1 turns up for Android everybody should be able to play.

Q2 2010?

S

[Skid]

The browsers on my Droid (Milestone) forwards me Adobe's site that
tells me:
"Adobe Flash Player 10.1 is coming to Android 2.0 and future releases
in the first half of 2010."

Nice and vague but there you are.

[chris harper]

Hey Sena

It looks like I have to do a little more research between Flash 9 and FlashLite. I will do that tonight. Thank you.

Unfortunately I have the Sprint HTC HERO which as I recently found out is less open to find ROM updates. I will search for the Sense 2 that you referred to. I might get lucky. :-)

I am doing a proof of concept right now for an app that I want to do.
For my app to work I will need to interact certain system actions on the phone with code in Flash (actionscript 2 which FlashLite supports).
I have not found a way for Java (i.e. an android app) to interact with actionScript directly.

The bridge I found is javascript.

ActionScript WILL interact with javascript.
Java also interact with javascript as seen here with WebView.
http://code.google.com/p/apps-for-android/
Check out the WebViewDemo.

So what I am trying to do is when an action happens ( for example the phone ringing or other events on the phone)  that triggers a call to javascript which will then in turn send an action to the actionScript within flash which will then perform an animation or something.
If I can only find a way to actually display the flash content within WebView.

I might be out in right field on this and if I am please feel free to give me a virtual slap around but this is the only way I can find to do what I want.

-Chris

[Frank Weiss]

Chris, sounds OK to me. I suppose using the WebView is to bridge between Flash and Java as you indicated and to allow instant application updates (instead of requiring install of a rich interface application).

 

However, the plumbing looks awful, I think you'd agree. I've wondered if Adobe hasn't missed the boat by not having made Flash the mobile app platform of choice, but that's another discussion.

[Dianne Hackborn]

On Tue, Dec 29, 2009 at 1:45 PM, chris harper <ch39...@gmail.com> wrote:

I am doing a proof of concept right now for an app that I want to do.
For my app to work I will need to interact certain system actions on the phone with code in Flash (actionscript 2 which FlashLite supports).
I have not found a way for Java (i.e. an android app) to interact with actionScript directly.

Hi, the platform currently doesn't support Flash.  I would ask that you please do not put applications up on the Market that rely on Flash, as they will be very tied to specific devices that may happen to have it.

Even if at some point Flash is more generally supported on the platform, it may well be an optional plug-in for users to download, so you would want to think very seriously about whether you want rely on that with the attendant hassles for the user of having to install Flash to use your app.  And of course the minimum platform version your app would be compatible with is whichever one this feature appears on -- for example, however you get it to work with the HTC Hero will probably not match a standard platform facility, since this is a non-standard platform feature owned by HTC.

Of course for futzing around with your own private app, have at it and do what you want.  But for things that are intended to go on market, please keep this in mind.

--
Dianne Hackborn
Android framework engineer
hac...@android.com

Note: please don't send private questions to me, as I don't have time to provide private support, and so won't reply to such e-mails.  All such questions should be posted on public forums, where I and others can see and answer them.

[chris harper]

Dianne

Really?
So what you are saying is that Android development doesn't really want developers building applications that use Flash?
I can see your point on how Flash is tied to certain devices but I was assuming that in 2010 more support from both the adobe and android camps would be working together toward making flash more of  a standard so developers can start writing some really cool apps to take advantage of Flashes capabilities. As shown by this video by adobe:
http://www.adobe.com/devnet/devices/articles/htchero.html

So that was my current focus.

But it now sounds like if anyone wants to develop an Android app that uses Flash it'll be more of a gamble and might not work for most devices or at the least be a hassle for the end user to make it work because they would have to install Flash plugins.

That kind of sucks but thank you for the information before I dove to deep into my project.

It is kind of disappointing because if Android and Adobe can get together and start supporting development of applications that use Flash then that would be an Ace in the hole for making Android apps far better than the IPhone.
Yes I know Adobe CS5 has a feature on compiling Flash into IPhone apps but it's compiled code with MANY limitations and users still can not browse Flash based websites or upload .swf files and load them dynamically (that was the first route I took for my idea). :-)

My backup plan is to use OpenGL and I will take that route now but it just didn't have as cool features for animation as Flash unless anyone else has any other suggestions?

Thank you again Dianne
-Chris

--

[Sena Gbeckor-Kove]

Hi Chris,

Are you totally tied to wanting to do this using Flash or would you be fine with doing it in native code. If so it sounds pretty easy to implement without Flash.

Or is there a lot more ActionScript you need to interact with?

S

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[chris harper]

No not totally tied to Flash. It's just that Flash would have fit really well with what I wanted to do because I could have designed my characters and animated them in CS4 and they set it up really nice in CS4 to create .swf's for a mobile projects where I could have then ported the .swf into my Android app that I wanted to build.

That is where in my opinion if Android and Adobe would get together and create a nice plugin (like Android did with eclipse) for CS4 to create Android app's with Flash in them then we would REALLY start to see some sweet apps coming out for Android and that would be a big step up over IPhone apps. This would benefit both parties greatly. More market share for Adobe and better apps for Android.

Until then I can see Diane's point though were until Flash becomes more mainstream on the mobile devices you are limiting your app on which users can use it if depends on Flash until more devices can support it.

I have no doubt that the Adobe folks will be going head strong to make Flash more available in 2010 for more devices and I am excited about that.

You are right Sena I have not looked to in depth at the animation within androids library's but last night I took good look at the Lunar Lander example and how to animate within the Android's native library. I think that might be a good route to go now.
I am thinking that I can design my characters and backgrounds using ToonBoom studio and then import the images and backgrounds and animate them with android native code.


Hopefully a good one idea??

That is my direction now. Unless anyone else knows of maybe a better solution I am totally open to suggestions and thank you everyone for your input.

:-)

-Chris

[Sena Gbeckor-Kove]

Hi Chris,

> No not totally tied to Flash. It's just that Flash would have fit really well with what I wanted to do because I could have designed my characters and animated them in CS4 and they set it up really nice in CS4 to create .swf's for a mobile projects where I could have then ported the .swf into my Android app that I wanted to build.
>
> That is where in my opinion if Android and Adobe would get together and create a nice plugin (like Android did with eclipse) for CS4 to create Android app's with Flash in them then we would REALLY start to see some sweet apps coming out for Android and that would be a big step up over IPhone apps. This would benefit both parties greatly. More market share for Adobe and better apps for Android.

That paragraph suggests to me that you're not a big coder. The tools for developing in Flash runtime environments are certainly easier to use to create graphics heavy output, however you have a more control

From what's coming out of Adobe, I'd expect them to be able to create the tools but its a case of whether is the market right now.

> Until then I can see Diane's point though were until Flash becomes more mainstream on the mobile devices you are limiting your app on which users can use it if depends on Flash until more devices can support it.
>
> I have no doubt that the Adobe folks will be going head strong to make Flash more available in 2010 for more devices and I am excited about that.
>
> You are right Sena I have not looked to in depth at the animation within androids library's but last night I took good look at the Lunar Lander example and how to animate within the Android's native library. I think that might be a good route to go now.
> I am thinking that I can design my characters and backgrounds using ToonBoom studio and then import the images and backgrounds and animate them with android native code.

You should have no trouble designing your animations in most tools and then exporting the frames as pngs.

Good Luck
S

[chris harper]

Oh no don't get that impression I am very much a coder. Degrees in Computer Science. I have been writing Java and OO for years with weblogic and MDB's.

I am totally willing to do the coding for my application.

I just was looking for a straight forward way to create new animations for my application that users can download that my app can run with out having to add a bunch of new code for each new animation is what I was aiming for. I was invensioning this with the .swf files.

Someone just pointed me to this nice suite which seems very promising:

http://developer.openplug.com/

I don't know if anyone has used it yet but it looks like it has a lot of possibilities.

I'll take a good look at it tonight.

The biggest challenge I find as a developer is not that if I can find a way to do something or not but rather what is the BEST way to do it with all the different options out there. So I like to explore many different paths.

:-)

-Chris

[Dianne Hackborn]

On Tue, Dec 29, 2009 at 5:42 PM, chris harper <ch39...@gmail.com> wrote:

So what you are saying is that Android development doesn't really want developers building applications that use Flash?

Only a few phones have Flash at this point so, no, I would not suggest using it.

Longer term...  well, it would be problematic for this to become a standard part of the Android SDK.  Given that flash is proprietary, that would leave us with the platform becoming dependent on someone else's proprietary code in order to support these apps.  This is very counter to a basic philosophy of Android, that the entire platform is open-source and thus you don't need to someone's proprietary code to build an "android compatible" device.

(And to head off the inevitable cries about not really being open-source -- yes there are bits and pieces that are not open source, such as hardware drivers and applications like Market.  This is a far cry from baking dependencies on non-open-source code into the standard APIs, though.)

  

But it now sounds like if anyone wants to develop an Android app that uses Flash it'll be more of a gamble and might not work for most devices or at the least be a hassle for the end user to make it work because they would have to install Flash plugins.

I can't tell you what devices Flash may or may not be available on, because it is owned by Adobe.  Clearly they have a self-interest in getting it as widely spread as possible, but from the perspective of the platform we can't make any guarantees about who can include it on a device, the kinds of hardware it can run on, and how well it would perform.  And that is one of the big rubs.

 

It is kind of disappointing because if Android and Adobe can get together and start supporting development of applications that use Flash then that would be an Ace in the hole for making Android apps far better than the IPhone.

The first step for having some technology adopted for the standard Android platform is to make it available under an open-source license that is compatible with the rest of the platform.  Somehow, I don't see this happening for Flash. :}

[chris harper]

Thank you Dianne

Thanks for the information on Flash. It gave me the direction I needed and it is good to know where Flash and Android stand. In another year or two who knows right?

I been studying the Lunar Lander example as far as the graphics and it looks like a good way to go and I started a new design for my application.

Thank you for taking the time to answer my questions.

I hope you a good holiday.

-Chris

[theSmith]

Well well well. you all should find this interesting. Man I love CES.

http://www.engadget.com/2010/01/05/nexus-one-previewed-with-flash-10-1-beta-careful-what-you-wish/

Looks like we're going to need a addon flash blocker on android
soon...

-theSmith

On Jan 4, 11:48 am, chris harper <ch393...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Thank you Dianne
>
> Thanks for the information on Flash. It gave me the direction I needed and
> it is good to know where Flash and Android stand. In another year or two who
> knows right?
>
> I been studying the Lunar Lander example as far as the graphics and it looks
> like a good way to go and I started a new design for my application.
>
> Thank you for taking the time to answer my questions.
>
> I hope you a good holiday.
>
> -Chris
>

> On Sun, Jan 3, 2010 at 6:06 PM, Dianne Hackborn <hack...@android.com> wrote:

> > hack...@android.com

>
> > Note: please don't send private questions to me, as I don't have time to
> > provide private support, and so won't reply to such e-mails.  All such
> > questions should be posted on public forums, where I and others can see and
> > answer them.
>
> >  --
> > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google
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