Flex to Apollo conversion: easy does it!

Posted by Dennis on Mar 20, 2007 in 3D • No comments

Yesterday the alpha version of Apollo was released. Time to put it to the test! Currently I’m working on a new version of my guitar scales application. The Flex (development) version can be seen here. I was curious about how much trouble it would be to turn this Flex application into an Apollo application. It turned out to be very easy. Here are the steps I took:

  • First of all: downloaded the runtime, sdk and the Flex Builder extension
  • Created a new Apollo project in Flex Builder
  • Edited the [myappname]-app.xml file and changed the systemChrome attribute of the rootContent element to “false”. This removes the standard OS chrome and replaces it with a standard Flex chrome. In turn, the Flex chrome can be removed by adding a showFlexChrome attribute to the mx:ApolloApplication root element with a value of “false”.
  • Added application thumbnails to the [myappname]-app.xml file: 
    <icon><image16x16>assets/images/appicon16.png</image16x16>...
  • Added a close button to the main Panel: 
    <mx:Button click="stage.window.close()" label="Close application" />
  • Added a mousedown event to the panel’s titlebar in order to let the user move the application: 
    // should be placed in the constructor
addEventListener(FlexEvent.CREATION_COMPLETE, creationCompleteHandler);

private function creationCompleteHandler(event:FlexEvent):void {
	titleBar.addEventListener(MouseEvent.MOUSE_DOWN, onMouseDownInTitleBar);
}

private function onMouseDownInTitleBar(event:MouseEvent):void {
	stage.window.startMove();
}
  • Save all, build and last but not least: File > Export > Deployable AIR File, add the application icons in the wizard and press finish!
  • Check out the result.

Some useful links:



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