Is there any way to read a pdf using AS3? (Air) - actionscript-3

I want to be able to read at least some of the info a pdf has, this is in mobile, using an installed app built with Air.
Are there any libraries or methods to do this?.
Thanks.

Easiest way to do it is through StageWebView if you are running iOS. On Android, I haven't really found a good way to do it. There are no good libraries for it. Almost every PDF-related AS3 library is focused on writing PDFs, not displaying them. I've found a few in the past that can display them, but the end result is terrible and slow.

Related

How can I embed TouchDB in a phonegap html5 app?

Basically I want the sync feature of CouchDB while developing with HTML5 and package the app with phonegapp.
I see that couchbase mobile has a few drawbacks(large code size, long startup time) and TouchDB seems promising. However, I can't find an obvious way to integrate TouchDB with Phonegapp. Is this possible? Or what's the right way to do it? Thanks in advance.
I Think that the best way to use TouchDB on phone gap app's is to develop a phonegap-plugin that allow you to access touchDB from your JavaScript/HTML PhoneGap-app,
this means that you should develop a phonegap-plugin for Android that call TouchAndroid and another one for IOS that call TouchIOS, ...etc.
hope this help,

FlashDevelop ? Do i still need Flash CS

I am fairly new to Flash and AS3.
My questions is do I actually still need to use Flash CS6 to setup the stage and library files.
Or can it all be done from FlashDevelop ?
Thanks
Flash CS6 is an application similar to Photoshop, you generally use it for creating/structuring/positioning graphical resources and then makes it possible to animate these (from keyframe to keyframe) and then access the graphical content from code.
So, the answer is no, you can create a SWF file without Flash, you can embed content to use in AS3-code without flash and you can use flex-components and position them without flash.
But creating any bigger project like that would be pretty unnecessary since you just as well could use some other language or tools for doing that kind of stuff. Tools and languages that were designed to do this specific thing.
Few months ago I switched completely to FD and since today I successfully built everything only in FD. The reason was that I had huge project to publish, and I couldn't compile it in Flash because of memory shortage for JVM compiler. With FD that was not a problem.
So in short, no, you don't need flash any more.
Though maybe there can be some things that you can create quicker and easier way in Flash than in FD (for example: some timeline animation and then publish to SWC to use with FD).
I still have Flash installed, just in case for quick animation jobs.
You need it if you want to create graphic objects to use them later in your code. The alternative is to create everything by code
It depends. If you need to use vector graphics, drawn in Flash, then the easiest way to incorporate them in your project is to use the IDE-based project (http://www.flashdevelop.org/wikidocs/index.php?title=Projects#AS3_Flash_IDE_Project). This isn't the only way, but it's easier than packaging them up and using libraries. In this case you are effectively using FD just as an external AS editor (and it's worth doing it just for this, since it is a much better editor than the one built in to Flash Pro.
If, on the other hand, you are working with objects drawn in code, with text, or with external bitmaps, then no, there's no real need to use CS* at all.
The advantage to OOP is having an environment like Flash for layout. It's been pretty crucial for me as a designer and when implemented correctly with a proper class structure, becomes extremely powerful. It really depends on what you are using as3 for. I find the Flash architecture to be most advantageous in the context of interface design, but for things like games or "static" interactives, sometimes its much more efficient to do everything in code and compile outside of Flash.

What technology : painting program in browser?

I wanna develop a little paint-program (SVG business-card designer) which should be hosted in the cloud, im trying to get my head around what technology i should settle on.
Possible answers as i see it would be SilverLight, Flash, Java, HTML5.
I would be happy to avoid SilverLight and Flash for several reasons, HTML5 im worried about due to compatibillity with ex. IE browser ? Java i dont know enough about to understand if that would be the right way.
One example im quite impressed about is :
http://code.google.com/p/svg-edit/
And looking to somewhat hit the same as that, but again IE explorer ( which is what majority uses ) is an issue here too regarding SVG format.
I might be able to live with only ex. IE9, but wondering what you guys would think would be the right approach/language/framework/technology to make such an application ?
Thanks alot.
For a business card designer, you should be concentrating on font and page layout, in which case you need to use an online editor. There are lots of free WYSIWYG editirors that run from web pages and there are soe very sophisticated ones like FCKeditor. FCK also includes everything that you need for uploading images and maintaining a clipart gallery. I beleieve that it's available for both Windows and Apache web servers and it doesn't require admin permission to install, once the upload folders have write permissions.

Video Conference In HTML app

I have an HTML based application i want to add video conference any idea please. I want exact functionality like Skype. I have checked Skype API but it does not support video in HTMl. Any idea how i can implement in java script of Java.
You will probably have to work with node.js for setting up a bidirectional client-server-communication with WebSockets (some examples). If you haven't heard of it, you can think of node.js as serverside JavaScript.
You will also need (something like) the Media Capture API to capture video and audio devices.
Try googling some of these keywords and you will find tons of examples how to work with them.
Good luck!

Importing a program from ActionScript 3 to Adobe AIR

I have made an application that is coded only in ActionScript 3.0, and uses HTML and JavaScript for the display.
I would like to have the same result, but using Adobe AIR. I do not know Adobe AIR at all, so I was wondering if you could direct to some good tutorials that will teach me how I can move my .html/.js/.as files to Adobe AIR please. I am using Adobe Flash Builder 4.
Thank you very much,
Rudy
Are you using HTML and JavaScript for anything other than embedding the SWF? If not, you can create a Flex project from Flash Builder (at least that was the way in Flex Builder 3 - I don't know if they've changed it) and mark output format as AIR to start with. The easiest way would be to add the main Sprite of your AS project as a child to the rawChildren of the WindowedApplication class of the AIR from the creationComplete event handler.
It is hard to say more without knowing what type of project you're talking about.
You could still do this, but you would have to embed your own browser. Look at HTMLLoader:
At the very simplest, your air app would create an html display, where you would then embed your swf into an html page. (almost exactly like what you're doing now). However, AIR's webkit seems fairly old, and they didn't import everything, so some css stuff like corner-radius, etc, will not display as you would in any other browser.
However, this will only get you so far, as you won't have AIR capabilities yet. You would have to extend HTMLHost to create an API for the javascript container to access desktop'y capabilities, when you when then again have to use ExternalInterface again. This is probably where things will get a lot more tricky.