Local Notification ANE – Source Code

I started using Adobe Native Extensions ANE on iOS projects months ago, but then I quickly felt limited because sometimes extensions didn’t do exactly what I wanted and sometimes there was no native extension for some not widely used iOS features. Then I started studying Objective-C to try to overcome these limitations myself. I started by modifying the Daniel Kostler’s Local Notification ANE posted in the Adobe site (see Added Features below).

This post explains how to download the ANE source code and update it if you want to. If you only want to include the ANE in your Flash projects see my next post here.

Important!
I know little about Android but yet managed to add some features though not all of them.

Added Features

• Placed all classes in a new namespace.
• The NotificationManager.applicationBadgeNumber property allows you to set and get the value of the application icon badge number.
• The Notification class has three additional properties:
  • fireDate: This property will let you pass a Date object with the date when you want the notification to be triggered.
  • repeatInterval: This property allows you to define a repeat interval between notifications. If no repeat interval is specified it triggers a single time. This property must be set to one of the constants in the NotificationTimeInterval class.
  • soundName: This property specifies a sound file name to play. For the sound to play it must be a wav, aiff or caf sound file using Linear PCM, MA4, µLaw or aLaw format and must be shorter than 30 seconds. It seems AIR is converting from MP3 to the needed formats.
• The native iOS code was cleaned up. It looks like at the beginning they were trying to support Local as well as Remote(Push) Notifications. But then they just decided to support only Local, and a lot of garbage code was left in there. Besides, this test code was depending on a large library that was not included with the ANE. Without this library the project couldn’t compile.
• Added a default version of the ANE that does nothing, to allow compiling debug versions on Desktop computers.
• Documentation updated to reflect the extension additions.

The ANE Source Code

First you need to download the LocalNotification project source code from Github here. You can clone the project using Git:

git clone https://github.com/juank-pa/JKLocalNotifications-ANE.git

ActionScript Code

If you are going to add features to the component requiring a new interface in the ActionScript side you need to edit the Flash Builder project:

1. Open Flash Builder. You need Flash Builder 4.6.
2. Select File > Import Flash Builder Project
3. Select the Project folder option and then click on Browse
4. Navigate to the folder where you cloned or unzipped the source code:
   [download-path]/src/FlashBuilder
5. Once you accept the project appears in FlashBuilder
6. Do the changes you want
7. Open the project properties by selecting Project > Properties
8. Go to the Flex Library Compiler Tab. In Additional Compiler Arguments you’ll see some -define options:
   • CONFIG::device: This option must to true to build the Device version and false to build the Desktop version. When this flag is false all other flags are ignored.
   • CONFIG::iphone: This option must be true to build the iOS version. For this to work CONFIG::device must be true and every other device flag must be false.
   • CONFIG::android: This option must be true to build the Android version. For this to work CONFIG::device must be true and every other device flag must be false.
9. Compile each version by toggling the above compiler arguments and then selecting Project > Build Project.
10. Every time you build, rename the resulting SWC file to prevent it being replaced by the next build.
11. For information on how to create the ANE ActionScript side see:
    Coding the ActionScript side

Objective-C Code

Once you added the interface you need to actually add those features in native code:

1. Install the latest version of XCode
2. Open the folder where you cloned or unzipped the source code and open the XCode project located at:
   [download-path]/src/XCode/LocalNotificationLib
3. Make the changes you want to the project located at the LocalNotificationLib folder in the project navigator.
4. Choose the target to compile from the list next to the Stop button on the top bar. The project has two targets:
   • The target called LocalNotificationLib compiles the static library used for the ANE.
   • The target called LocalNotificationTest is a native iOS application that allows you to test the notifications directly in the emulator or device.
5. Ensure the target device is set to iOS Device and not any Simulator. This is very important.
   
6. Select Product > Edit Scheme in the menu.
7. Ensure the build configuration is set to Release. This is not mandatory but release builds will run faster.
8. Build the project.
9. Once built a Release folder will appear in the XCode LocalNotifications project folder. Here you’ll find a LocalNotificationLib.a file which is the native library for the ANE.

For more information on coding AIR extensions see: Developing Native Extensions

Packaging the ANE

Now you have all the necessary assets to create the package:

1. Copy all the three .SWC versions created in Flash Builder to this folder:
   [download-path]/bin
2. For each copy:
   1. Change the extension from .SWC to .ZIP
   2. Open or decompress and open the ZIP file
   3. Copy the library.swf file to the corresponding folders i.e. the Android SWF file to the [download-path]/bin/android folder, the iOS SWF file to the [download-path]/bin/iphone folder, and the default SWF file to the [download-path]/bin/default folder.
3. Change the name of the .SWC file of the default version to LocalNotificationLib.swc. You can delete every other .ZIP/.SWC file if you want.
4. Copy the LocalNotificationLib.a file from [download-path]/src/XCode/LocalNotificationLib/Release to [download-path]/bin/iphone folder.
5. Open a Terminal and type:

"/Applications/Adobe Flash Builder 4.6/sdks/4.6.0/bin/adt" -package -target ane LocalNotificationLib.ane extension.xml -swc LocalNotificationLib.swc -platform Android-ARM -C android . -platform iPhone-ARM -C iphone . -platformoptions options.xml -platform default -C default library.swf

That’s it, the new ANE file should be there for you to use it in you own projects. By the way I’m using the default Flash Builder install folder here but change the path if you have it installed somewhere else. Also, I divided the terminal command into multiple lines for convenience but everything must be placed in a single line. I’m not very good at Linux or Terminal commands. If somebody can help with a good script to automate the process I’ll be glad.

I hope this post will help you, not only to add additional features to this ANE but also as a Getting Started point on creating your own ANEs.

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Thanks in advance!

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