Actionscript Plotter Communication - actionscript-3

We are having an application where we want to use Adobe AIR application to communicate with Plotter hardware which is currently used for cutting the clothing material according to given inputs.Currently the software used for same is called Lectra which is the SW from plotter company.This SW is also used for designing purpose.
Now we want to create our own SW with our needs and want to know how we can communicate with Plotter to cut the material using our software.
Does anybody has used Actionscript with plotter like cutters/printers? Is there any other utility which can be used through air app and communicated with plotter?
Any pointers in right directions are appreciated.

In Windows Enviroment
you can use c/c++ or visual c++ and make one executable file which have all functionality like communication with you hardware, giving input to it, taking response from it ETC. after making this .exe file you can directly communicate with this .exe file using socket connection.
detail description of socket communication with air giving in its Documentation and other tutorial are also available
may this will help you...

Related

call Win32 API in flex to set Window Display Affinity

I have created a Flex Desktop Application with Adobe Air.
I need to protect the application from being captured. By changing the window display affinity of the application, the application can be protected from being captured.
How to use win API in flex?
Is there any other way to protect the window from being captured?
First you have to make sure that the main window does not have the WS_EX_LAYERED Windows style. That style makes SetWindowDisplayAffinity fails with code 8 (ERROR_NOT_ENOUGH_MEMORY), at least on my machine (Seven Pro 64 bits). In your -app.xml file, set the value to false for the node <transparent> under <initialWindow>.
Second, you have to choose how to inject a regular C DLL in the application process, as the API will fail with error 5 (ERROR_ACCESS_DENIED) if you try to change the affinity of a window not living in the caller process.
One possible injection method is using the SetWindowsHookEx API. Google will give you many hits about that one. Feel free to ask for some details. You obviously needs cooperation of another process, here (and some Win32 APIs practice).
Another possible way is coding an 'ACTIONSCRIPT® Extensions for ADOBE® AIR®' (PDF).
The later seems preferable:
No collaboration from an external process needed.
Adobe AIR does the DLL loading for you.
C/C++ code much more simple.
I used the first technique, as I am more fluent in raw Win32 APIs about DLL, than I am with AIR and Action Script...
I successfully tested that first technique with a very simple "Hello World" AIR Desktop application, and get a nice "All Black" image after Print Screen.

Would controlling a Mobile/Belt Printer via Bluetooth from a Xamarin solution be easier from Android or WP8?

We are in the process of deciding whether our port of a legacy Compact Framework/Windows CE app (potentially cross-platform, thus using Xamarin in Visual Studio) should be done first for Android or Windows Phone 8 (iOS is on the "back burner").
I imagine the port of the existing (C#) code would be easier if we targeted WP8 (as opposed to Android), nevertheless welcome rebuttals/refutations. Am I right?
Even better would be some sample code of how such manipulation (sending PCL* from the PCL**) is accomplished. Does anybody have any they'd like to share (has anybody done this yet)?
If it is relevant, the device we would probably be writing to is a Zebra QL220, and we would be sending a barcode and related info.
* Printer Control Language
** Portable Class Library
Android Bluetooth socket with Xamarin exposes System.IO.Stream for both input and output. As long as you target the stream with the communication protocol you should be able to swap out Android BT socket with a virtual serial port on a computer or any other option that also provides a Stream to write to and read from. You could abstract it even further but I feel Stream is probably the most convenient target.

Using Bluetooth ANE for Android

I'm relatively new to flash, air and AS3 so I'm sorry if this comes of as a beginners question. I have made an application in AIR to run on windows and communicate with my atmega8 chip through serial communication via serproxy.
Now I want to port that application to android to perform the same basic functions but communicate to the atmega8 via bluetooth. So I created a new Air for android file in Flash CS6 copied my code from my previous application excluding the communication through sockets part and created an apk which ran on an android phone:). It did everything except the communication as expected.
Now I have been trying to implement the as3breeze.com/bluetooth-ane and use it to communicate but I'm not too sure how to go about the whole thing. I have imported the ane through actionscript settings and have implemented the classes but when I try to test I get this error.
The content cannot be loaded because there was a problem loading an extension: Error: Extension namespace is invalid for C:\Users\AppData\Local\Temp\Tmp_ANE_File_Unzipped_Packages\AndroidBluetooth.ane
So after some searching I found posts talking about as3 sdk and flash builder. Do I really need all these things or can I make my bluetooth app work some how with just flash cs6? Also what exactly does my error mean and how can I solve it. Thanks in advance for any help. I have been searching so a solution to this for days and I either get an explanation that does not work or I lack the knowledge to understand.
The path that can't be accessed makes me believe you haven't extracted the ANE (basically you're trying to access a temporary directory). Try extracting the ANE file to somewhere, like My Documents or wherever your flash project is, and include (in the actionscript settings) that path instead.
Hope it helps.

Adobe Air native extensions and IO operations

I need to wrap a C library with Adobe AIR native extension API (ANE).The extension should target IOS and Android.First,I realize that for Android , if not using NDK API , I have to port that library to Java.But my main concern is IO operations like read and write to file system which exist in that library.I read through the ANE development manual but found no note on restriction of native lib communication with the host file system.Does it mean my native library is allowed to read and write files inside AIR extension freely ?
You definitely can access the filesystem to read and write files.
The only thing of note here is that you'll only have access to the parts of the filesystem that the application has permission to access. So you basically just have to obey any restrictions that a normal native application developer has.
I've used the java.io.File to access files in ANE's no problem.
Based on what I see scanning through that too it reads to me like it's doable but I can't confirm 100%
When you create a native extension, you provide the following:
ActionScript extension classes that you define. These ActionScript classes use the built-in ActionScript APIs that allow access to and data exchange with native code.
A native code implementation. The native code uses native code APIs that allow access to and data exchange with your ActionScript extension classes.
sounds to me like you have whatever native API available for writing your native extension in and they're just providing a "bridge" or "data tunnel" to communicate between the actionscript code and the native extension. They have one import from the android library for log in their example as well so I imagine you can use whatever objects/methods are available for each platform, I suppose the only real question is then what access the native process has on the file system for each platform. If you don't get an answer please try and post back (if I have time I'll do the same).

Alternative to using Flash Projector as Autorun Interface?

I have been given the task of creating an Autorun installer for a distributable CD, and thought I would challenge the task with Flash. In previous versions of flash it was possible to use fscommand and trickery to run other local exe files, but due to virus creators and what-not, this has been reworked and totally destroyed for others to use.
So as a Flash developer I have hit a bit of a brick wall with this, and am asking out for any alternative ideas anybody may have? I am quite open with learning new languages/programs, and would like any expert advice from people in the know.
Just as a heads up for what features are required:
GUI with simple graphics/buttons
Ability to launch external exe/pdf files
must be able to be compiled to an exe, which can be launched by any windows machine without installing third party software eg Java.
The only simple solution I have thought of is making an html page, but using a browser is something I want to avoid doing!
Please Help :)
Christian
You can continue using flash freely if you want. There is a bunch of projector tools like northcode swf studion, Zink, mProjector and others. You can also create your own tool using any system programing language that produces windows executable - the only thing you will need - is to create an ActiveX instance of Flash Player and set up minimalistic API to allow Flash call required system functions.