Recently in AIR Category

I know that this blog is usually about Flex and Flex documentation but as a Technical Writer who has used RoboHelp for many projects over the years, I was happy to see our latest release of the Technical Communication Suite and even happier to see the RoboHelp Packager for Adobe AIR, which went live last week.

For more information on deploying RoboHelp-generated Help systems on AIR, see the posting on the Adobe Technical Communication blog: http://blogs.adobe.com/techcomm/2008/08/robohelp_packager_for_adobe_air_is_live_now.html.

Many Flex, Adobe AIR, Adobe BlazeDS, and Adobe LiveCycle ES developers choose to use the Eclipse plug-in configuration of Flex Builder so that they can develop Java code in the same IDE that they use to develop the MXML and ActionScript code. While the standalone version of Flex Builder does not contain tools to edit Java code by default, you can install them as Eclipse plugins. That lets you use the standalone version of Flex Builder to edit Java code.

To install the Java development tools in the standalone version of Flex Builder:

1. Use the Help > Software Updates > Find and Install menu command to open the Install/Update dialog box

2. Select Search for new features to install.

3. Click Next.

4. In the results, choose Europa Discovery Site.

5. Click Finish.

6. Select the Java Development package to install.

7. Click Next.

8. Accept the license.

9. Click Finish.

Note: You might be prompted to install additional plugins required by the Java Development package.

To change perspective:

1. Use the Window > Perspective > Other to access all perspectives.

You can also click the Open Perspective button in the upper-right corner of the workbench window, then select a perspective from the pop-up menu.

2. Select Java from the list of perspectives.

The Flex ASDoc tool parses one or more ActionScript class definitions to generate API reference documentation for all public and protected methods and properties, and for all [Bindable], [DefaultProperty], [Event], [Style], and [Effect] metadata tags. By default, the ASDoc tool links in all of the Flex SWC files required to compile custom Flex components. However, to use ASDoc to generate documentation for custom Adobe AIR components, you must link in the necessary AIR SWC files.

For example, you create a custom component named MyAirComboBox that extends the AIR mx.controls.FileSystemComboBox component. The directory location of your custom component file is:

C:\myApplication\myComponents\MyAirComboBox.as

Use the following ASDoc command to generate API reference documentation for MyAirComboBox:

..\bin\asdoc -doc-sources C:\myApplication\myComponents\MyAirComboBox.as -library-path+=..\frameworks\libs\air -main-title "My AIR API Documentation" -window-title "My AIR API Documentation" -output air-asdoc

This command assumes the following:

• You run the command from the directory C:\Program Files\Adobe\Flex Builder 3\sdks\3.0.0\asdoc in your Flex Builder installation directory structure. If you are using the Flex SDK, or have installed Flex Builder on another operating system, modify the paths in this command as necessary.
• The AIR SWC files are installed in the directory C:\Program Files\Adobe\Flex Builder 3\sdks\3.0.0\frameworks\libs\air. This is the default directory location for a Flex Builder installation.

  This command uses the library-path option to the ASDoc tool to specify the directory location of the AIR SWC files. The"+=" operator to the -library-path option specifies to append the AIR SWC files to the Flex SWC files.

• The ASDoc tool writes the output to the directory C:\Program Files\Adobe\Flex Builder 3\sdks\3.0.0\asdoc\air-asdoc.
  

If you have created multiple AIR components, you can use the following ASDoc command to generate documentation for an entire package:

..\bin\asdoc -doc-sources C:\myApplication\myComponents -library-path+=..\frameworks\libs\air -main-title "My AIR API Documentation" -window-title "My AIR API Documentation" -output air-asdoc

See the Flex 3 documentation for more information on the ASDoc tool.