This article was originally written in English. Text in other languages was provided by machine translation.

In my previous blog article http://blogs.adobe.com/globalization/invoking-icu-from-adobe-air-applications-2, I demonstrated using the AIR3 ActionScript Native Extensions feature to invoke ICU from an AIR application. I used the AIR developer tools to compile and build various components. In this article, I demonstrate the same using the prerelease version of Adobe Flash Builder 4.6. It is much simpler to do this in Flash Builder avoiding the cumbersome command line.

The prerelease version of Adobe Flash Builder4.6 has a new Flex SDK version 4.5.2, which has AIR3 integrated. Please download the sample files as follows.

• Download AirIcuExtension MS Visual Studio project (AirIcuExtensionNative)
• Download AirIcuExtension actionscript library and ANE files (AirIcuExtension)
• Download AiricuExtensionTest test project (AirIcuExtensionTest)

You will need the following software to build an ICU extension for AIR platform.

• MS Visual Studio 2010 (to build AIR native extension DLL coded in C/C++)
• Adobe Air 3 download (To build Adobe Actionscript extension) from http://labs.adobe.com/downloads/air3.html .  Install the AIR 3 runtime.
• Adobe Flash Builder 4.6 prerelease version. Please see
  http://www.adobe.com/devnet/flex/articles/whats-new-flex-flash-builder-46.html https://prerelease.adobe.com/callout/default.html?callid=DC919522A42544798C33ECB4041FC5DC
  http://blogs.adobe.com/flex/2011/09/flex-and-flash-builder-4-6-and-pre-release.html
  for details. Download it to C:FB4.6.
• ICU 4.8 binaries (http://site.icu-project.org/download/48). Download windows 32bit VC2010 zip. Unzip the libraries to any folder. My sample downloaded to C:icuicu4.8.1win32 folder.­­

1         Building ICU extension for Adobe AIR

Adobe AIR t native extensions, also known as ‘ane’ or ‘ANE’ files are archived packages. These consist of

• ActionScript wrapper classes calling into external DLLs
• The external DLLs
• XML file describing details of external DLLs

The archived ANE files are used just like SWC libraries in integrating into an AIR application. In other words, ANE file is a library and it has public ActionScript APIs.

Covering all details about the ActionScript extension is too much for this blog article, but I will explain the steps to build this sample and run. Below are the sequential steps and commands.

1.1       Building Windows AIR ICU Extension DLL

1)      The AirIcuExtensionWin folder has the Visual studio solution ‘AirIcuExtension.sln’. Open this in MS VS2010.

2)      The file AIRIcuExtension.cpp has the necessary code needed to interface with Adobe AIR 3. It also has the wrapper routines calling ICU C functions.

3)      This is a DLL project and the build output is AirIcuExtension.dll

1.2       Building ActionScript Library in FB 4.6

1.2.1       Building the ActionScript library

Create a new ActionScript Library project and name it AirIcuExtension. See the downloaded ActionScript FB4.6 library project.

1.2.2       Packaging ActionScript native extension

To package an ANE, you still need to do it in commandline. FB 4.6 does not have a feature yet to generate ANEs in the IDE.

Open the binAirIcuExtension.swc is a zipped archive. Open it using WinRAR or WinZip program and extract the library.swf file in the swc package into the AirIcuExtensionbin folder.

The folder srcresources contains file extension.xml, AirIcuExtension.dll and ICU dlls icudt48.dll, icuuc48.dll, icuio48.dll and icuin48.dll. The file external.xml defines the external library details to AIR runtime.

For simplicity, place the AirIcuExtension.dll, ICU dlls and extension.xml files in AirIcuExtensionbin folder. All these files are packaged into a zipped archive called AiricuExtension.ane using the following command.

Using Adobe FlashBuilder4.6 or  C:FB4.6sdksbinadt program, one can generate an AIR certificate.

The output is an archive file AirIcuExtension.ane in the AirIcuExtensionbin folder.

1.3       Building the Test program AirIcuExtensionTest.mxml

Now that we built and packaged the native extension package AiricuExtension.ane, we are ready to use this and call ICU services in a test program.

The folder AirIcuExtensionTestsrc contains the test file AirIcuExtensionTest.mxml. The descriptor file AirIcuExtensionTest-app.xml has  the details of native extension.

Flash builder4.6 has a new feature to link Flash applications with ANE files. As you see from the FB4.6 project properties ‘Flex Build Path’ command, there is a new tab for Native Extensions. Using ‘Add ANE’ button, add the AirIcuExtension.ane file present in the AirIcuExtension/bin folder as shown below.

Also see the ‘Flex Building Package’ command in the project properties, there is a new tab for Native Extension. Please make sure that the check box for AiricuExtension is On.

The output swf file AirIcuExtensionTest.swf is placed in the bin-debug folder.

1.4       Building AIR package for executing AirIcuExtensionTest

The final step is to package the above AirIcuExtensionTest .swf and AirIcuExtension.ane files into an AIR executable folder.  We can do this in FB4.6 now instead of using tedious command line.

• IN FB4.6, select AiricuExtensionProject and execute menu command Project->Export Release Build…
• In the ensuing dialog, choose Signed native installer radio button. We can only create native installers as we are using OS specific ANE package.
  
• In the Native Extensions tab, make sure that the AirIcuExtension.ane checkbox is On.
  
• Finish creating the release build after entering the correct AIR certificate credentials.

The output of the above command is an installer AirIcuExtensionTest.exe. By executing it, you can install the test program.

2         Conclusion

The sample illustrated how to invoke ICU from ActionScript. The AIR ICU extension is easy to build using the upcoming AdobeFlash Builder 4.6 release. ANE is a great feature for AIR developers and AIR applications can make use of the platform or ICU provided globalization services.