Adobe AIR Beta Channel Update
This beta release provides access to the latest AIR runtime and SDK (with compiler) for Windows, Mac OS, iOS and Android. You can download the AIR beta here: Download Adobe AIR 14 Beta - Adobe Labs
Below are some of the key features and benefits of AIR 14. Please see our release notes for full details.
New Features:
This new texture sampling filter can enhance the image quality of textures on surfaces that are at oblique viewing angles. There are two ways to enable this feature:
- In AGAL, set one of the values – "anisotropic2x", "anisotropic4x", "anisotropic8x", or "anisotropic16x" to the filter option in the sampling instructions.
- Call Context3D::setSamplerStateAt with the 3rd parameter "filter" being one of the values defined in Context3DTextureFilter - "ANISOTROPIC2X", "ANISOTROPIC4X", "ANISOTROPIC8X", or "ANISOTROPIC16X"
- New Stage3D "Standard" Profile
Developers can now request this high level profile when creating Context3D. Three new features are available in this profile:
- Multiple render target allows to you to draw geometry to multiple outputs (up to 4) during one drawing
- Floating point texture allows you to create Texture, RectangleTexture and CubeTuxture with the RGBA16F folder.
- AGAL v2 contains these improvements:
- Increased register size
- Partial derivative instructions
- Fragment depth output
- Conditional forward jump
- Intel x86 Android Support
As announced in our Flash Runtime blog, we're adding support for Intel x86 Android to AIR. An ADT command line option (-arch) has been added to allow packaging apps with Android x86 support. Please note that both shared and captive packaging is now allowed for x86 architecture. More information can be found in this blog post.
Sample APK packaging command for x86 devices:
adt -package -target ( apk | apk-captive-runtime ) -arch x86 -storetype pkcs12 -keystore abc.p12
HelloWorld.apk HelloWorld-app.xml HelloWorld.swf
adt -package -target apk-debug <debug options> -arch x86 -storetype pkcs12 -keystore abc.p12 HelloWorld.apk
HelloWorld-app.xml HelloWorld.swf
Note that -arch is optional. If not specified, armv7 is assumed.
Packaging for x86 architecture in Flash Builder:
Open the debug/run configurations of the project in Flash Builder and click on "Customize launch.." button. Add new parameter "-arch" with value
"x86" and place it before "-storetype". Click "OK" to apply changes. Except RTMPE and DRM, all other features and capabilities are completely functional and supported. Native extensions written for the x86 platform can also be packaged and used by an app for an x86 devices. To support this, a new ANE platform 'Android-x86' is now available. The following
example highlights the usage of the same -
<extension xmlns="http://ns.adobe.com/air/extension/14.0">
<id>com.adobe.sample.ane</id>
<versionNumber>1.0</versionNumber>
<platforms>
<platform name="Android-ARM">
<applicationDeployment>
<nativeLibrary>sample.jar</nativeLibrary>
<initializer>com.example.ane.Extension</initializer>
<finalizer>com.example.ane.Extension</finalizer>
</applicationDeployment>
</platform>
<platform name=“Android-x86">
<applicationDeployment>
<nativeLibrary>sample.jar</nativeLibrary>
<initializer>com.example.ane.Extension</initializer>
<finalizer>com.example.ane.Extension</finalizer>
</applicationDeployment>
</platform>
</extension>
New packaging command for ANE:
adt -package -target ane Sample.ane extension.xml -swc Sample.swc -platform Android-ARM -C Android-ARM/ . -platform Android-x86 -C
Android-x86/ .
- Improved Packaging Engine - iOS
Based on the feedback received from the developer community, tons of improvements and bug fixes have been made in the new packaging engine for iOS. We encourage developers to report issues to http://bugbase.adobe.com, to ensure that we are able to continue to improve the packager in future releases.
To enable this feature, please use "-useLegacyAOT no" in the ADT command, before the signing options. As of now, this feature is not available within Flash Pro but it can still be used with Flash builder by adding the parameter -useLegacyAOT under the "Customize launch" option.
Here is an example ADT command for compiling an applications using “-useLegacyAOT no":
adt -package -target ( ipa-test | ipa-debug | ipa-app-store | ipa-ad-hoc) -useLegacyAOT no -provisioning-profile -keystore -storetype pkcs12 -storepass xxxx HelloWorld.ipa Helloworld-app.xml HelloWorld.swf
For more information, please visit Faster compiling with AIR for iOS
The AIR Gamepad feature enables an app developer to provide a second screen on Android mobile devices for the Flash based browser games. AIR Gamepad API enables Flash based browser apps to connect to a paired Android device running the AIR Runtime app and therefore allowing the Android devices to be used as game controllers or second-screen interfaces.
Key functionality of this feature:
Gesture eventsTouch events
Accelerometer events
Vibration
Customize the AIR gamepad screen by applying your own skins
To learn more about the AIR Gamepad APIs, please refer to the documentation found here.
To try out the Wand.swc which can be downloaded from here.
Live samples of AIR Gamepad can be tested using the following links:
ModelViewer
HungryHero
Fixed Issues:
About the Beta Channel
If you would like real-time notification for announcements related to the AIR Beta Channel please follow the Flash Runtime Announcements forums by choosing "Follow this forum" from the right-hand menu on the Forums page.
You can find instructions for getting started with this release here: AIR Labs Page
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