| Apache Flex (Flex) |
| ================== |
| |
| Apache Flex SDK is an application development framework for easily building |
| Flash-based applications for mobile devices, web browsers, and desktops. |
| |
| Apache Flex 4.12.1 is a follow up release to Apache Flex 4.12.0. This version |
| adds new features and implements bug fixes that were unavailable in previous |
| versions. It is compatible with most code written to target Adobe Flex 4.6. |
| |
| For detailed information about Apache Flex please visit |
| http://flex.apache.org/ |
| |
| Apache Flex is a large project with many pieces. The framework is |
| implemented in ActionScript and the compiler is implemented in Java. |
| |
| Currently supported platforms include: |
| |
| Microsoft Windows |
| Mac OS X |
| Apple iOS |
| Google Android |
| RIM BlackBerry |
| Linux |
| |
| Apache Flex is the software evolution of the popular Adobe Flex SDK project. |
| |
| The community surrounding Flex is vast, diverse, distributed globally, and |
| with all levels of proficiency in software development. |
| |
| There has been more that 30,000 installs of Apache Flex. The Apache Flex web |
| site gets 3 quarters of a million page views a year and more than 250,000 |
| unique visitors a year. |
| |
| |
| Getting the convenience packages for Apache Flex |
| ================================================ |
| |
| The Apache Flex SDK Installer is an application that simplifies the download |
| and installation of the Apache Flex SDK and its (required) components. It is |
| aimed at anyone who wants to use the latest release of the Apache Flex SDK, |
| but who might not necessarily be familiar with the tools and procedures |
| required to compile the Apache Flex SDK from source code. The application |
| will grab the binary distribution of the SDK from apache.org or one of its |
| mirrors, install it onto your computer and prepare it for use with your |
| favorite IDE such as Adobe Flash Builder or JetBrains IntelliJ IDEA. |
| |
| You can get the SDK Installer from the Apache Flex website at |
| |
| http://flex.apache.org/installer.html |
| |
| The SDK installer requires the Adobe AIR runtime to be installed. |
| |
| Starting with Apache Flex 4.12 the binary distribution can be installed |
| using only ANT in addition to the AIR installer mentioned above. This is |
| the recommended method for Linux users. More information about installing |
| the binary installtion with ANT can be found on our wiki at : |
| |
| https://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/display/FLEX/Installation+help#Installationhelp-Antinstaller |
| |
| Getting the latest sources via git |
| ================================== |
| |
| Getting the source code is the recommended way to get Apache Flex. We also |
| offer an automated installer along with binary distributions on our website |
| at http://flex.apache.org/. |
| |
| You can always checkout the latest source via git using the following |
| command: |
| |
| git clone https://git-wip-us.apache.org/repos/asf/flex-sdk.git sdk |
| cd sdk |
| git checkout develop |
| |
| An Apache Flex SDK also requires source code from other Apache Flex git |
| repositories. To get the latest source via git for the Text Layout |
| Framework use the following command: |
| |
| git clone https://git-wip-us.apache.org/repos/asf/flex-tlf.git tlf |
| cd tlf |
| git checkout develop |
| |
| In an Apache Flex source code package hosted on the distribution server or |
| one of its mirrors, the Text Layout Framework code is already included in |
| the package. This is also true for the convenience package. |
| |
| Linux support is currently experimental and you may run into issues. Apache |
| Flex would like to see a fully supported Linux release, but we need support |
| from the community in order to do that. Please help out if you can. |
| |
| For further information visit http://flex.apache.org/download-source.html |
| |
| Building Apache Flex 4.12.1 |
| ========================= |
| |
| Apache Flex is a large project. It requires some build tools which must be |
| installed prior to building Flex and it depends on some external software |
| which are downloaded as part of the build process. Some of these have |
| different licenses. See the Software Dependencies section for more |
| information on the external software dependencies. |
| |
| From Apache's perspective, the Adobe Flash Player and Adobe AIR have |
| excluded licenses so they can not be bundled with the Apache Flex binaries. |
| They must be installed prior to building Apache Flex. |
| |
| Linux support is currently experimental and while it is possible to compile |
| the SDK it has not been fully tested so you may run into issues. |
| |
| Install Prerequisites |
| --------------------- |
| |
| Before building Flex you must install the following software and set the |
| corresponding environment variables using absolute file paths. Relative |
| file paths will result in build errors. |
| |
| The environment variables PLAYERGLOBAL_HOME, AIR_HOME, FLASHPLAYER_DEBUGGER, |
| TLF_HOME, and ADOBE_EXTENSION_MANAGER can also be set in the property file |
| called env.properties. See the env-template.properties file for |
| instructions. |
| |
| The Adobe Flash Player playerglobal.swc is needed to compile all the |
| components |
| with the exception of the airframework and airspark components which require |
| airglobal.swc from the AIR Integration Kit. The AIR Integration kit is also |
| needed to build and debug mobile applications. The Adobe Flash Player |
| content debugger is used by checkintests and other pieces of the test |
| subsystem to run compiled applications. |
| |
| The build scripts assume that the source code folder containing the Text |
| Layout Framework (tlf) folder is at the same level as the sdk folder or |
| located inside the frameworks/projects folder. If this is not true, then |
| you must set the TLF_HOME environment variable to point to the tlf folder. |
| |
| ================================================================================== |
| SOFTWARE ENVIRONMENT VARIABLE (absolute paths) |
| ================================================================================== |
| |
| Java SDK 1.6 or greater (*1) JAVA_HOME |
| (for Java 1.7 see note at (*2)) |
| |
| Ant 1.7.1 or greater (*1) ANT_HOME |
| (for Java 1.7 see note at (*2)) |
| |
| Adobe AIR Integration Kit (*3) AIR_HOME |
| |
| Adobe Flash Player Content Debugger (*4) FLASHPLAYER_DEBUGGER |
| |
| Adobe Flash Player playerglobal swcs (*5) PLAYERGLOBAL_HOME |
| |
| Adobe Extension Manager CS5 (*6) ADOBE_EXTENSION_MANAGER |
| |
| Text Layout Framework TLF_HOME |
| |
| ================================================================================== |
| |
| *1) The bin directories for ANT_HOME and JAVA_HOME should be added to your |
| PATH. |
| |
| On Windows, set PATH to |
| |
| PATH=%PATH%;%ANT_HOME%\bin;%JAVA_HOME%\bin |
| |
| On the Mac (bash), set PATH to |
| |
| export PATH="$PATH:$ANT_HOME/bin:$JAVA_HOME/bin" |
| |
| On Linux make sure you path include ANT_HOME and JAVA_HOME. |
| |
| *2) If you are using Java SDK 1.7 or greater on a Mac you must use Ant 1.8 |
| or greater. If you use Java 1.7 with Ant 1.7, ant reports the java |
| version as 1.6 so the JVM args for the data model (-d32/-d64) will not |
| be set correctly and you will get compile errors. |
| |
| *3) The Adobe AIR integration kit for Windows can be downloaded from: |
| http://airdownload.adobe.com/air/win/download/13.0/AdobeAIRSDK.zip |
| |
| The Adobe AIR integration kit for Mac can be downloaded from: |
| http://airdownload.adobe.com/air/mac/download/13.0/AdobeAIRSDK.tbz2 |
| |
| The Adobe AIR integration kit for Linux can be downloaded from: |
| http://airdownload.adobe.com/air/lin/download/2.6/AdobeAIRSDK.tbz2 |
| |
| This version of Apache Flex was certified for use with AIR 13.0, and |
| should be compatible with other versions of AIR newer than 3.1. However |
| it hasn't been fully tested on AIR 3.2, 3.3, 3.5, 3.6 or 3.7. |
| |
| Download the AIR SDK for your platform and unzip it. Set AIR_HOME to the |
| absolute path of the AIR SDK directory. |
| |
| *4) The Adobe Flash Player content debuggers can be found here: |
| http://www.adobe.com/support/flashplayer/downloads.html |
| |
| This version of Apache Flex was certified for use with Adobe Flash |
| Player 11.1, and is compatible with versions 10.2 through 13.0. It has |
| been tested with versions 11.1, 11.7, 11.8, 11.9 and 12.0 on Windows |
| and Mac. It has been compiled against other Adobe Flash Player versions |
| but has not been fully tested. It has not been fully tested on Linux. |
| |
| On Windows, set FLASHPLAYER_DEBUGGER to the absolute path including the |
| filename of the FlashPlayerDebugger.exe. Note the filename of flash |
| player debugger maybe different. |
| e.g. C:\MyPath\FlashPlayerDebugger.exe |
| |
| On the Mac, set FLASHPLAYER_DEBUGGER to the absolute path of |
| Flash Player Debugger.app/Contents/MacOS/Flash Player Debugger |
| |
| On Linux, set FLASHPLAYER_DEBUGGER to the absolute path of |
| flashplayerdebugger |
| |
| *5) The Adobe Flash Player playerglobal.swc for 11.1 can be downloaded from: |
| http://download.macromedia.com/get/flashplayer/updaters/11/playerglobal11_1.swc |
| |
| Use URL above to download playerglobal11_1.swc. Create the directory, |
| player/11.1 and copy playerglobal11_1.swc to |
| player/11.1/playerglobal.swc. |
| |
| Set PLAYERGLOBAL_HOME to the absolute path of the player directory (not |
| including the version subdirectory). The target-player option controls |
| which PLAYERGLOBAL_HOME subdirectory is used. |
| |
| Other more recent versions of Adobe Flash Player playerglobal.swc can be |
| downloaded from: |
| http://download.macromedia.com/get/flashplayer/updaters/11/playerglobal11_2.swc |
| http://download.macromedia.com/get/flashplayer/updaters/11/playerglobal11_3.swc |
| http://download.macromedia.com/get/flashplayer/updaters/11/playerglobal11_4.swc |
| http://download.macromedia.com/get/flashplayer/updaters/11/playerglobal11_5.swc |
| http://download.macromedia.com/get/flashplayer/updaters/11/playerglobal11_6.swc |
| http://download.macromedia.com/get/flashplayer/updaters/11/playerglobal11_7.swc |
| http://download.macromedia.com/get/flashplayer/updaters/11/playerglobal11_8.swc |
| http://download.macromedia.com/get/flashplayer/updaters/11/playerglobal11_9.swc |
| http://download.macromedia.com/get/flashplayer/updaters/12/playerglobal12_0.swc |
| http://download.macromedia.com/get/flashplayer/updaters/13/playerglobal13_0.swc |
| |
| These can be used with Apache Flex but not all have not been fully |
| tested. |
| |
| *6) The Adobe Extension Manager is only required for those creating releases |
| or testing changes to the flash-integration swc. Note that if you |
| change APIs on classes that flash-integration depends on, you may need |
| to update flash-integration. |
| |
| The Adobe Extension Manager for Windows can be downloaded from: |
| http://download.macromedia.com/pub/dw_exchange/extension_manager/win/AdobeExtensionManager5All.zip |
| |
| The Adobe Extension Manager for Mac can be downloaded from: |
| http://download.macromedia.com/pub/dw_exchange/extension_manager/mac/AdobeExtensionManager5All.dmg |
| |
| On Windows, set ADOBE_EXTENSION_MANAGER to the absolute path of "Adobe |
| Extension Manager CS5.exe" |
| |
| On Mac, set ADOBE_EXTENSION_MANAGER to the absolute path of "Adobe |
| Extension Manager CS5.app" |
| |
| On Linux, no Adobe Extension Manager exists and there's nothing that |
| needs to be done here. |
| |
| FlashPlayer Configuration |
| ------------------------- |
| |
| For testing, the Adobe Flash Player's mm.cfg file must have the following |
| entries |
| |
| ErrorReportingEnable=1 |
| TraceOutputFileEnable=1 |
| |
| and a FlashPlayerTrust file must allow local SWFs to access local files. |
| |
| Other Locale Support |
| -------------------- |
| |
| The Apache Flex SDK defaults to using the en_US locale and SDK error |
| messages are by default displayed in American English. |
| |
| To compile the SDK for another locale either: |
| |
| Change the locale in the build.properties file to have a value other than |
| "en_US". For this new locale to take effect the SDK needs to be recompiled. |
| For example, to use the Australian English locale change locale to have a |
| value of "en_AU" |
| like so: |
| |
| locale = en_AU |
| |
| OR |
| |
| Compile the SDK with a -Dlocale=<locale> option, where <locale> is the new |
| locale to compile the SDK against. |
| |
| To compile all supported locales, which may take some time, use |
| |
| ant other.locales |
| |
| The list of supported locales currently include: |
| da_DK el_GR en_GB fi_FI it_IT nb_NO pt_PT zh_CN |
| de_CH en_AU en_US fr_CH ja_JP nl_NL ru_RU zh_TW |
| de_DE en_CA es_ES fr_FR ko_KR pt_BR sv_SE |
| |
| The Apache Flex SDK has only been tested for the en_US locale, however there |
| is unlikely to be any issues with a SDK compiled for another locales. |
| |
| Adobe Flash Player Version Support |
| ---------------------------------- |
| |
| The Apache Flex SDK defaults to using the Adobe Flash Player 11.1. The SDK |
| can be used with Flash Player versions 10.2, 10.3, 11.0, 11.1, 11.2, 11.3, |
| 11.4, 11.5, 11.6, 11.7, 11.8, 11.9, 12.0 and 13.0. |
| |
| It is recommended that you update to the latest version of Adobe Flash |
| Player. Newer versions of the Adobe Flash player address security |
| vulnerabilities, fix bugs/issues, increase stability, and implement new |
| features. |
| |
| To use the SDK for another version of the Adobe Flash Player either: |
| |
| Change the flex-config.xml configuration file to specify another version of |
| the Adobe Flash Player. |
| |
| OR |
| |
| Change the playerglobal.version in the build.properties file to have a value |
| other than "11.1". For this change to take effect the SDK needs to be |
| recompiled. For example to compile against the latest version of the Adobe |
| Flash Player set the value of playerglobal.version to be "12.0" like so: |
| |
| playerglobal.version = 13.0 |
| |
| OR |
| |
| Compile the SDK with a -Dplayerglobal.version=<version> option, where |
| <version> is the Adobe Flash Player version to compile the SDK against. |
| |
| |
| Different versions of the Adobe Flash Player require different versions of |
| playerglobal.swc. |
| |
| These can be found at: |
| |
| http://download.macromedia.com/get/flashplayer/installers/archive/playerglobal/playerglobal10_2.swc |
| http://download.macromedia.com/get/flashplayer/installers/archive/playerglobal/playerglobal10_3.swc |
| http://download.macromedia.com/get/flashplayer/updaters/11/playerglobal11_0.swc |
| http://download.macromedia.com/get/flashplayer/updaters/11/playerglobal11_1.swc |
| http://download.macromedia.com/get/flashplayer/updaters/11/playerglobal11_2.swc |
| http://download.macromedia.com/get/flashplayer/updaters/11/playerglobal11_3.swc |
| http://download.macromedia.com/get/flashplayer/updaters/11/playerglobal11_4.swc |
| http://download.macromedia.com/get/flashplayer/updaters/11/playerglobal11_5.swc |
| http://download.macromedia.com/get/flashplayer/updaters/11/playerglobal11_6.swc |
| http://download.macromedia.com/get/flashplayer/updaters/11/playerglobal11_7.swc |
| http://download.macromedia.com/get/flashplayer/updaters/11/playerglobal11_8.swc |
| http://download.macromedia.com/get/flashplayer/updaters/11/playerglobal11_9.swc |
| http://download.macromedia.com/get/flashplayer/updaters/12/playerglobal12_0.swc |
| http://download.macromedia.com/get/flashplayer/updaters/13/playerglobal13_0.swc |
| |
| Copy the target playerglobal.swc to the directory: |
| |
| frameworks/libs/player/<version>/playerglobal.swc |
| |
| Where <version> is the major and minor version numbers of the Adobe Flash |
| Player separated by a period or full stop. |
| |
| If all of the playerglobal swcs where installed the frameworks/libs/player |
| directory structure would look like this. |
| |
| /frameworks |
| /libs |
| /player |
| /10.2 |
| /playerglobal.swc |
| /10.3 |
| /playerglobal.swc |
| /11.0 |
| /playerglobal.swc |
| /11.2 |
| /playerglobal.swc |
| /11.2 |
| /playerglobal.swc |
| /11.3 |
| /playerglobal.swc |
| /11.4 |
| /playerglobal.swc |
| /11.5 |
| /playerglobal.swc |
| /11.6 |
| /playerglobal.swc |
| /11.7 |
| /playerglobal.swc |
| /11.8 |
| /playerglobal.swc |
| /11.9 |
| /playerglobal.swc |
| /12.0 |
| /playerglobal.swc |
| /13.0 |
| /playerglobal.swc |
| |
| Apache Flex has been tested with Adobe Flash Player 11.1, 11.5, 11.7, 11.8, |
| 11.9, 12.0 nd 13.0 on Windows and Mac. |
| |
| Apache Flex has not been tested on Linux so some issue may exist in this |
| release. |
| |
| It compiles against other Adobe Flash Player versions and is expected to |
| work but their may be some issues, particularly with the earlier 10.2 and |
| 10.3 versions of the Adobe Flash Player. |
| |
| Software Dependencies |
| --------------------- |
| |
| Apache Flex uses third-party code that will be downloaded as part of the |
| Apache Flex build. In addition, there is some optional third-party code |
| that you can choose to download if you would like to take advantage of the |
| features offered and you agree to the license terms. |
| |
| The Apache Version 2.0 license is in the LICENSE file. |
| |
| The following dependencies have licenses which are, or are compatible with, |
| the Apache Version 2.0 license. You will not be prompted to acknowledge the |
| download. Most of the jars are installed in lib/external. |
| |
| batik - http://archive.apache.org/dist/xmlgraphics/batik/batik-1.6.zip |
| commons-collections - http://archive.apache.org/dist/commons/collections/binaries/commons-collections-3.0.tar.gz |
| commons-discovery - http://archive.apache.org/dist/commons/discovery/binaries/commons-discovery-0.2.tar.gz |
| commons-logging - http://archive.apache.org/dist/commons/logging/binaries/commons-logging-1.0.4.tar.gz |
| javacc - http://java.net/projects/javacc/downloads/download/javacc-5.0.tar.gz |
| saxon9 - http://sourceforge.net/projects/saxon/files/Saxon-B/9.1.0.8/saxonb9-1-0-8j.zip/download |
| velocity - http://archive.apache.org/dist/velocity/engine/1.4/velocity-1.4.tar.gz |
| xalan - http://archive.apache.org/dist/xml/xalan-j/binaries/xalan-j_2_6_0-bin.tar.gz |
| xerces - http://archive.apache.org/dist/xerces/j/Xerces-J-bin.2.9.1.zip |
| |
| The following dependencies have licenses which Apache considers to be |
| reciprocal licenses so you will be prompted to acknowledge the license |
| before the software is downloaded to your system. These files are installed |
| in frameworks/libs. |
| |
| osmf.swc |
| |
| Open Source Media Framework v1.0 used for video components |
| |
| This file is extracted from: |
| http://sourceforge.net/projects/osmf.adobe/files/OSMF%201.0%20%28final%20source%2C%20ASDocs%2C%20PDF%20guides%2C%20and%20release%20notes%29/OSMF_1.0.zip/download |
| |
| This software is released under the Mozilla Public License Version 1.1: |
| <http://www.mozilla.org/MPL/> |
| |
| The following dependencies have licenses which Apache considers to be not |
| compatible with the Apache License Version 2.0. You will be prompted to read |
| and agree to the license terms of the dependency before the software can be |
| downloaded to your system. |
| These are optional components which enable additional features. They are |
| installed in libs/external/optional. |
| |
| flex-messaging-common.jar |
| Provides integration with Adobe BlazeDS. |
| |
| This files are extracted from: |
| http://fpdownload.adobe.com/pub/flex/sdk/builds/flex4.6/flex_sdk_4.6.0.23201B.zip |
| |
| This software is released under an Adobe license: |
| <http://www.adobe.com/products/eulas/pdfs/adobe_flex_software_development_kit-combined-20110916_0930.pdf> |
| |
| flex-fontkit.jar |
| afe.jar, adt.jar |
| aglj40.jar |
| rideau.jar |
| Adobe proprietary software which provides embedded font support. |
| |
| These jars are extracted from: |
| http://fpdownload.adobe.com/pub/flex/sdk/builds/flex4.6/flex_sdk_4.6.0.23201B.zip |
| |
| This software is released under an Adobe license: |
| <http://www.adobe.com/products/eulas/pdfs/adobe_flex_software_development_kit-combined-20110916_0930.pdf> |
| |
| Using the Binary Distribution |
| ----------------------------- |
| |
| You must download the third-party dependencies. |
| |
| When you have all the prerequisites in place and the environment variables |
| set, (see Install Prerequisites above -- you cannot use the env.properties |
| file to set the environment variables for these steps.), use |
| |
| cd <flex.dir>/frameworks |
| ant thirdparty-downloads |
| |
| Additionally, you will need to build the RSLS for the SDK before you run the |
| batch files. |
| |
| cd <flex.dir> |
| ant frameworks-rsls |
| |
| To use this SDK in a IDE like Flash Builder 4.6 or 4.7 the SDK needs |
| several other files to be packaged and integrated with the Apache Flex SDK. |
| |
| If you have an existing installation of Flash Builder run: |
| |
| /ide/constructFlexForIDE.sh (on Mac and Linux) |
| /ide/constructFlexForIDE.bat (on Windows) |
| |
| This will create an Apache Flex 4.12.1 SDK that can be used with Flash |
| Builder by copying the required files from the Adobe Flex 4.6 SDK. |
| |
| To create an SDK for other IDE or if you want to use Adobe AIR 13.0 |
| (rather than AIR 3.1 contained in Adobe Flex 4.6) run: |
| |
| /ide/flashbuilder/makeApacheFlexForIDE.sh (on Mac and Linux) |
| /ide/flashbuilder/makeApacheFlexForIDE.bat (on Windows) |
| |
| This will create an Apache Flex 4.12.1 SDK that can be used by an IDE by |
| downloading Adobe Flex 4.6 SDK and Adobe AIR 13.0. |
| |
| Building the Framework in a Binary Distribution |
| ----------------------------------------------- |
| |
| The source for most of the framework is included in the binary distribution. |
| It can be useful if you wish to debug and/or extend components. |
| |
| When you have all the prerequisites in place and the environment variables |
| set, (see Install Prerequisites above), use |
| |
| cd <flex.dir>/frameworks |
| ant main (or just ant since the default target is main) |
| |
| to download the third-party dependencies and build the Flex framework. You |
| may be prompted to acknowledge some of the downloads. Since the third-party |
| dependencies take a little while to download and they don't change very |
| often, they are not cleaned with the regular clean target. |
| |
| To clean the build, of everything other than the downloaded third-party |
| dependencies use |
| |
| ant clean |
| |
| To clean the build, of everything, including the downloaded third-party |
| dependencies use |
| |
| ant super-clean (which is just thirdparty-clean followed by clean) |
| |
| Building the Source in the Source Distribution |
| ---------------------------------------------- |
| |
| The source for both the Flex compiler and the Flex framework is included in |
| the source distribution. The compiler is in the modules directory and the |
| framework is in the frameworks directory. |
| |
| Because the sdk uses the Text Layout Framework, you will have to clone |
| it too and link it to the textLayout project of the sdk: |
| |
| cd <flex.dir>/.. |
| git clone https://git-wip-us.apache.org/repos/asf/flex-tlf.git tlf |
| |
| When you have all the prerequisites in place and the environment variables |
| set (see Install Prerequisites above), use |
| |
| cd <flex.dir> |
| ant main (or just ant since the default target is main) |
| |
| to download the thirdparty dependencies and build the source. You may be |
| prompted to acknowledge and/or confirm some of the downloads. Since the |
| third-party dependencies take a little while to download and they don't |
| change very often, they are not cleaned with the regular clean target. |
| |
| If you would like to build the RSLs, use |
| |
| ant frameworks-rsls |
| |
| To clean the build, of everything other than the downloaded third-party |
| dependencies use |
| |
| ant clean |
| |
| To clean the build, of everything, including the downloaded third-party |
| dependencies use |
| |
| ant super-clean (which is just thirdparty-clean followed by clean) |
| |
| To generate a source distribution package and a binary distribution package |
| use |
| |
| ant -Dbuild.number=<YYYYMMDD> -Dbuild.noprompt= release |
| |
| The packages can be found in the "out" subdirectory. |
| |
| To build the ASDoc package |
| |
| ant asdoc-package |
| |
| To get a brief listing of all the targets type |
| |
| ant -projecthelp |
| |
| |
| Thanks for using Apache Flex. Enjoy! |
| |
| The Apache Flex Project |
| <http://flex.apache.org> |
