Apache Flex (Flex)
==================
Apache Flex is an application framework for easily building Flash-based applications
for mobile devices, the browser and desktop.
For detailed information about Apache Flex please visit
http://incubator.apache.org/flex/
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
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. It is estimated that there are between
350,000 and 500,000 Flex developers worldwide.
Getting the latest sources via Subversion
=========================================
You can always checkout the latest source via subversion using the following
command:
svn co https://svn.apache.org/repos/asf/incubator/flex/trunk flex
For further information visit http://incubator.apache.org/flex/source.html
Building Apache Flex 4.8
========================
Apache Flex 4.8 is a parity release from Apache of Adobe Flex 4.6.
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. 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.
Install Prerequisites
---------------------
Adobe Flex 4.6 was certified with AIR 3.1 and Flash Player 11.1. Adobe Flex 4.8
will continue to use these.
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,
PIXELBENDER_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 Flash Player content debugger is
used by checkintests and other pieces of the test subsystem to run compiled
applications. The Adobe Pixel Bender Toolkit is needed to build some
files needed for effects.
==================================================================================
SOFTWARE ENVIRONMENT VARIABLE (absolute paths)
==================================================================================
Java SDK 1.5 (0_13 or greater) JAVA_HOME
or Java SDK 1.6 (*1)
Ant 1.7.0 or greater (*1) ANT_HOME
Cygwin, git bash
or other unix-like shell
(if Windows)
Adobe AIR Integration Kit (*2) AIR_HOME
Adobe Flash Player Content Debugger (*3) FLASHPLAYER_DEBUGGER
Adobe Pixel Bender Toolkit (*4) PIXELBENDER_HOME
Adobe Flash Player (*5) PLAYERGLOBAL_HOME
Adobe Extension Manager CS5 (*6) ADOBE_EXTENSION_MANAGER
==================================================================================
*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"
*2) The Adobe AIR integration kit for Windows can be downloaded from:
http://airdownload.adobe.com/air/win/download/3.1/AdobeAIRSDK.zip
The Adobe AIR integration kit for Mac can be downloaded from:
http://airdownload.adobe.com/air/mac/download/3.1/AdobeAIRSDK.tbz2
Download the AIR SDK for your platform and unzip it. Set AIR_HOME to the absolute
path of the AIR SDK directory.
*3) The Adobe Flash Player content debuggers can be found here:
http://www.adobe.com/support/flashplayer/downloads.html
On Windows, set FLASHPLAYER_DEBUGGER to the absolute path of 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 set FLASHPLAYER_DEBUGGER to the absolute path of flashplayerdebugger
*4) The Adobe Pixel Bender Toolkit for Windows can be downloaded from:
http://www.adobe.com/go/pixelbender_toolkit_zip/
The Adobe Pixel Bender Toolkit for Mac can be downloaded from:
http://www.adobe.com/go/pixelbender_toolkit_dmg/
Download the Pixel Bender Toolkit for your platform and install or unzip it.
Set PIXELBENDER_HOME to the absolute path of the Pixel Bender Toolkit directory.
*5) The Adobe Flash Player playerglobal.swc for 11.1 can be downloaded from:
http://fpdownload.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-version option controls which
PLAYERGLOBAL_HOME subdirectory is used.
*6) The Adobe Extension Manager is only required for those creating release or testing
changes to the flash-integration swc. Not 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 the Mac, set ADOBE_EXTENSION_MANAGER to the absolute path of "Adobe Extension Manager CS5.app"
FlashPlayer Configuration
-------------------------
For testing, the 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.
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 considers 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
frameworks/libs
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/>
textLayout.swc
framework/libs
Text Layout Format v2.0 used for text in Spark components
This file is extracted from:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/tlf.adobe/files/2.0/232/textLayout_build.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 thirdparty dependencies.
When you have all the prerequisites in place and the environment variables set,
(see Install Prerequisites above), use
cd <flex.dir>/frameworks
ant thirdparty-downloads
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 thirdparty 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.
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.
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=<last svn rev> -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.
The Apache Flex Project
<http://incubator.apache.org/flex/>