2

I have a Flex web application which uses Flex 3.6 sdk. What are all the ways to port this application iOs and Android devices.

Before the release of Flash builder 4, I have converted my Flex 3.6 project to AIR 2.0. (Which required very minimal code change) and used some command line tools to package it to .ipa and .apk. Sucessfully deployed it on a iPad. Application worked as expected. This is all I remember, I totally forgot about the procedures that i followed as it was before two years.

Now in Flash builder 4, There is a option to create "Mobile Project" which exports the application for different mobile platforms just by Rightclick on project - Export - Release Build .

but this page tells that "Except for the MX charting controls and the MX Spacer control, mobile applications do not support the MX component set defined in the mx.* packages."

Now I really confused which approach to follow.

Can some one please clarify on these

  1. What are all the ways to port Flex3.6 web application to iOs and Android devices.
  2. Do I need to convert my Flex3.6 project to Flex 4 project with all MX components changed to Spark components (This requires major change in my project) for mobile platform support.
  3. Is there any other ways to port my existing Flex3.6 application to mobile with very minimal code change. (I understand that changes like UI size, etc needs to be taken care)

Thanks.

Niy
  • 23
  • 1
  • 5

1 Answers1

3

First of all, I don't think reusing your web application as a mobile app is a very good idea from a user experience point of view, unless the interface is extremely simple (which wouldn't warrant a full blown Flex application in the first place).

  • the screen size is so different that it would probably be unusable, or at least uncomfortable
  • you have no touch interactions defined

But to answer to your questions: the mobile components are a completely different component set. They are more lightweight and optimized for mobile interactions. To achieve this gain in performance they were based on the Spark architecture. Which means that:

  1. There is no way to port your Flex 3 code
  2. Yes, you'll have to convert
  3. I can't think of any other way to port your application; minimal code change is out of the question

conclusion

Both the fact that it is technically impossible to automagically port the application from web (Flex 3) to mobile and that - even if it was - it wouldn't be recommended because of UX concerns, lead me to this suggestion: rebuild it from the ground up, both taking care of clean, optimized code for mobile and designing a UI that is appropriate for the targeted platform.

RIAstar
  • 11,907
  • 18
  • 37