by Alberto Medalla
Lecturer, Ateneo de Manila University

You can use AS3 to add some animation to your Flash project using code. Instead of adding tweens on the timeline, youll be using AS3 to animate objects. In this ActionScript video tutorial, Ill show you a few simple examples on how to create animation in Flash using the AS3 EnterFrame event.

AS3 Animation Tutorial - Using the AS3 EnterFrame Event to Create Animation in Flash

AS3 EnterFrame Event Animation Sample Code #1
Here is the code for the first example where the circle will continue to scale up as long as the movie is running.

var growthRate:Number = 2;

circle_mc.addEventListener(Event.ENTER_FRAME, grow);

function grow(e:Event):void
{
     e.target.width += growthRate;
     e.target.height += growthRate;
}

AS3 EnterFrame Event Animation Sample Code #2
In the second example, the animation will stop when the circles size reaches 150 pixels.

var growthRate:Number = 2;
var maxSize:Number = 150;

circle_mc.addEventListener(Event.ENTER_FRAME, grow);

function grow(e:Event):void
{
     e.target.width += growthRate;
     e.target.height += growthRate;
     if(e.target.width >= maxSize)
     {
          circle_mc.removeEventListener(Event.ENTER_FRAME, grow);
     }
}

AS3 EnterFrame Event Animation Sample Code #3
In the third example, the code has been modified to make the circle grow and then shrink repeatedly.

var growthRate:Number = 2;
var maxSize:Number = 150;
var minSize:Number = 100;
var scaleMode:String = "grow";

circle_mc.addEventListener(Event.ENTER_FRAME, growShrink);

function growShrink(e:Event):void
{
     if(scaleMode == "grow")
     {
          e.target.width += growthRate;
          e.target.height += growthRate;
          if(e.target.width >= maxSize)
          {
               scaleMode = "shrink";
          }
     }
     else if(scaleMode == "shrink")
     {
          e.target.width -= growthRate;
          e.target.height -= growthRate;
          if(e.target.width <= minSize)
          {
               scaleMode = "grow";
          }
     }
}

In this tutorial we will find out what Services are and what they are used for.

A Service in Android is a component similar to Activity. The difference between the two is that a Service runs in the background, it has no user interface whatsoever. Because of that, they are used to perform actions that dont need user interaction. A Service keeps running until it is stopped by something else or if it stops itself.

Using Intents, applications can connect and interact with Services. There can be more than one application connected to a single Service.

Just like the Activity class, Service has lifecycle methods. The 3 main ones are onCreate(), onStartCommant() and onDestroy().

A Service can be started by an application using Context.startService() method. It can be stopped using Context.stopService().

A Service can stop itself using Service.stopSelf() or Service.stopSelfResult() methods.

It is possible to connect to a running Service and use that connection to interact with the Service. The connection is established using Context.bindService() method and stopped using Context.unbindService().

If a Service has been stopped, it can be resumed using the bindService() method.

The onStartCommand() function is called by the system every time the service is explicitly called using the startService() method. It provides the arguments that are passed to the method, as well as a unique token of the start request. The onCreate() and onDestroy() methods are called in all Services regardless of whether they were added using startService() or bindService() methods.

Any Service can potentially interact with the user, because any Service can receive client requests. If a Service allows other applications to connect to it, its binding is done using these methods: onBind(), onUnbind() and onRebind(). They all receive Intent objects as parameters.

The Intent thats sent to the onBind() function is the one that was used in the bindService() function. The Intent thats sent to the onUnbind() function is the one that was used in unbindService().

The onBind() method returns the connection channel, which the clients can use to interact with the Service. The onRebind() function can be called after onUnbind(), if a new client connects to the Service.

Thats all for today. We will begin creating Services in the next part.

Thanks for reading!

In this tutorial we will learn how to display graphical data in GridViews.

First of all, well need to prepare some sample images. I put 4 images called sample1.jpg, sample2.jpg, sample3.jpg and sample4.jpg in the drawable-hdpi folder of my android project.

Once thats done, we can use them in our application.

Start by creating an Activity with a GridView:


To display images in a GridView, well need to create a custom adapter class. We will extend the BaseAdapter class and call our new custom class ImageAdapter.

If youre using Eclipse IDE, go to File > New > Class. Create the new java class, and use this code:


The logic behind the code is simple, the important part is to include everything the class needs to function properly. Note that we declare the array of pictures in the class itself, and then use an ImageView to display each item. If the ImageView object already exists, we reuse it.

The code of MainActivity.java class is simple too - just apply the adapter to the grid. The only unusual thing here is the passing of getApplicationContext() value to the ImageAdapter constructor.


The results look like this:



Thanks for reading!

In this post Im going to describe how we can read data from MySQL database and show them in a Android list view. You can download the complete Android project from here. To fetch data here I used a PHP script which encodes data into json format.
This project has three main parts.
1. MySQL database
2. PHP web service
3.Android web service client

1. MySQL database.
My database has only one table named "emp_info" and it has two columns. "employee name" and "employee no". "employee no" is the primary key.

2.PHP web service
Use following PHP script to fetch data from the database and to encode data in to json format.

<?php
$host="XXXXX"; //replace with database hostname 
$username="XXXXX"; //replace with database username 
$password="XXXXX"; //replace with database password 
$db_name="XXXXXX"; //replace with database name

$con=mysql_connect("$host", "$username", "$password")or die("cannot connect"); 
mysql_select_db("$db_name")or die("cannot select DB");
$sql = "select * from emp_info"; 
$result = mysql_query($sql);
$json = array();

if(mysql_num_rows($result)){
while($row=mysql_fetch_assoc($result)){
$json[emp_info][]=$row;
}
}
mysql_close($con);
echo json_encode($json); 
?> 

You can see the output of  php by clicking below url:
http://cpriyankara.coolpage.biz/employee_details.php

3.Android web service client.
This part is bit complected. Android activity is a combination of Async Task json and list view. If you are not familiar with those stuff look following tutorials.

Android Async Task and web service access
http://codeoncloud.blogspot.com/2013/07/android-web-service-access-using-async.html

Android list view
http://codeoncloud.blogspot.com/2013/07/how-to-populate-android-list-view-from.html

Here is the code for main Android activity.

package com.axel.mysqlphpjson;

import java.io.BufferedReader;
import java.io.IOException;
import java.io.InputStream;
import java.io.InputStreamReader;
import java.util.ArrayList;
import java.util.HashMap;
import java.util.List;
import java.util.Map;

import org.apache.http.HttpResponse;
import org.apache.http.client.ClientProtocolException;
import org.apache.http.client.HttpClient;
import org.apache.http.client.methods.HttpPost;
import org.apache.http.impl.client.DefaultHttpClient;
import org.json.JSONArray;
import org.json.JSONException;
import org.json.JSONObject;

import android.os.AsyncTask;
import android.os.Bundle;
import android.app.Activity;
import android.view.Menu;
import android.widget.ListView;
import android.widget.SimpleAdapter;
import android.widget.Toast;

public class MainActivity extends Activity {
 private String jsonResult;
 private String url = "http://cpriyankara.coolpage.biz/employee_details.php";
 private ListView listView;

 @Override
 protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
  super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
  setContentView(R.layout.activity_main);
  listView = (ListView) findViewById(R.id.listView1);
  accessWebService();
 }

 @Override
 public boolean onCreateOptionsMenu(Menu menu) {
  // Inflate the menu; this adds items to the action bar if it is present.
  getMenuInflater().inflate(R.menu.main, menu);
  return true;
 }

 // Async Task to access the web
 private class JsonReadTask extends AsyncTask<String, Void, String> {
  @Override
  protected String doInBackground(String... params) {
   HttpClient httpclient = new DefaultHttpClient();
   HttpPost httppost = new HttpPost(params[0]);
   try {
    HttpResponse response = httpclient.execute(httppost);
    jsonResult = inputStreamToString(
      response.getEntity().getContent()).toString();
   }

   catch (ClientProtocolException e) {
    e.printStackTrace();
   } catch (IOException e) {
    e.printStackTrace();
   }
   return null;
  }

  private StringBuilder inputStreamToString(InputStream is) {
   String rLine = "";
   StringBuilder answer = new StringBuilder();
   BufferedReader rd = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(is));

   try {
    while ((rLine = rd.readLine()) != null) {
     answer.append(rLine);
    }
   }

   catch (IOException e) {
    // e.printStackTrace();
    Toast.makeText(getApplicationContext(),
      "Error..." + e.toString(), Toast.LENGTH_LONG).show();
   }
   return answer;
  }

  @Override
  protected void onPostExecute(String result) {
   ListDrwaer();
  }
 }// end async task

 public void accessWebService() {
  JsonReadTask task = new JsonReadTask();
  // passes values for the urls string array
  task.execute(new String[] { url });
 }

 // build hash set for list view
 public void ListDrwaer() {
  List<Map<String, String>> employeeList = new ArrayList<Map<String, String>>();

  try {
   JSONObject jsonResponse = new JSONObject(jsonResult);
   JSONArray jsonMainNode = jsonResponse.optJSONArray("emp_info");

   for (int i = 0; i < jsonMainNode.length(); i++) {
    JSONObject jsonChildNode = jsonMainNode.getJSONObject(i);
    String name = jsonChildNode.optString("employee name");
    String number = jsonChildNode.optString("employee no");
    String outPut = name + "-" + number;
    employeeList.add(createEmployee("employees", outPut));
   }
  } catch (JSONException e) {
   Toast.makeText(getApplicationContext(), "Error" + e.toString(),
     Toast.LENGTH_SHORT).show();
  }

  SimpleAdapter simpleAdapter = new SimpleAdapter(this, employeeList,
    android.R.layout.simple_list_item_1,
    new String[] { "employees" }, new int[] { android.R.id.text1 });
  listView.setAdapter(simpleAdapter);
 }

 private HashMap<String, String> createEmployee(String name, String number) {
  HashMap<String, String> employeeNameNo = new HashMap<String, String>();
  employeeNameNo.put(name, number);
  return employeeNameNo;
 }
}

Add Internet permission to AndroidManifest.xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<manifest xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
    package="com.axel.mysqlphpjson"
    android:versionCode="1"
    android:versionName="1.0" >

    <uses-sdk
        android:minSdkVersion="8"
        android:targetSdkVersion="17" />

    <uses-permission android:name="android.permission.INTERNET" />

    <application
        android:allowBackup="true"
        android:icon="@drawable/ic_launcher"
        android:label="@string/app_name"
        android:theme="@style/AppTheme" >
        <activity
            android:name="com.axel.mysqlphpjson.MainActivity"
            android:label="@string/app_name" >
            <intent-filter>
                <action android:name="android.intent.action.MAIN" />

                <category android:name="android.intent.category.LAUNCHER" />
            </intent-filter>
        </activity>
    </application>

</manifest>

Code for main activity layout.

<RelativeLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
    xmlns:tools="http://schemas.android.com/tools"
    android:layout_width="match_parent"
    android:layout_height="match_parent"
    android:paddingBottom="@dimen/activity_vertical_margin"
    android:paddingLeft="@dimen/activity_horizontal_margin"
    android:paddingRight="@dimen/activity_horizontal_margin"
    android:paddingTop="@dimen/activity_vertical_margin"
    tools:context=".MainActivity" >

    <ListView
        android:id="@+id/listView1"
        android:layout_width="match_parent"
        android:layout_height="wrap_content"
        android:layout_alignParentTop="true"
        android:layout_centerHorizontal="true"
        android:layout_marginTop="14dp" >
    </ListView>

</RelativeLayout>

Quick demo of the application:


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Your comments always encourage me to write more...

Today we will learn about Activity stacks and tasks.

In Android all Activity objects are saved in a stack. Whenever an Activity launches another Activity, the new one is moved to the stack and becomes the active Activity. The previous one also remains in the stack, but it is moved lower. Activity objects in a stack are never repositioned, they can only be added or removed.

When the user presses the Back button on their device, the current Activity is pushed out of the stack and is replaced with the previous one, which becomes visible again.

If there are multiple Activities of the same class in a stack, they are treated as separate instances.

A stack with Activities in it is called a task, which can be put in the foreground, when one of its Activities is currently active, or in the background, where its completely out of user focus.

If the user doesnt interact with a task for a long period of time, the system clears all of that tasks Activities, except for the main one. To save the state of an Activity before it is destroyed, which is done after the onDestroy() method is called, you can use the onSaveInstanceState() method. Android calls it before creating an Activity, before calling onPause().

The system sends a Bundle object this way, which can be used to store some data to later be able to recreate the same Activity state. When the Activity is once again called, the system kindly sends the Bundle with all the parameters youve written as a parameter of the onCreate() method, as well as the onRestoreInstanceState() method, which is called after onStart(), so that one of them (or both) could return the Activity to what it looked like before.

The onSaveInstanceState() and onRestoreInstanceState() methods are not a part of the lifecycle of an Activity. They wont always be called by the system. For example, the onSaveInstanceState() method is called when the Activity become vulnerable to being destroyed by the system, but it isnt called if the user willingly closes it. Thats good, because it is an intuitive and expected behaviour.

Because onSaveInstanceState() is not always called, if youre saving data you should do that when the application gets paused - in the onPause() function.

That way it will be possible to later restart the destroyed Activity (if the system decides to destroy it) with the saved previous state.

That is all for today.

Thanks for reading!

In this tutorial we will learn about drawing primitive shapes in Android using Path and ArcShape classes.

The Path class is similar in usage to the way shapes are drawn using AS3. It has the moveTo() and lineTo() methods that youve probably worked with before if you ever tried drawing graphics using Actionscript3.

Using this class it is possible to draw unordinary primitive shapes, like, for example, a star.

First we set up the path for the lines to follow:


You can then apply the drawing to a ShapeDrawable object.



Next class is ArcShape. This one lets us draw arcs, basically. There are two values you need to pass to the ArcShape constructor - float startAngle and float sweepAngle.

Example:




Now weve covered all the primitive shape drawing classes.

Thanks for reading!

In this tutorial we will learn how to load and use a font from an asset.

Assets are somewhat similar to resources, yet different. While resources are embedded into the application and can be referred to using the R class, assets are raw files that are stored in the assets directory and require us to manually read them to use them in our applications.

Today well learn how to embed and use a raw .ttf font file as an asset in our application.

First of all you need to find the ttf file. You can download fonts online, I use fontsquirrel.com - all the fonts there are free and pretty good.

Once you have the .ttf file, put it in the assets directory of your project.

Then go to activity_main.xml of your application and add a TextView there:


Now go to MainActivity.java class and load the font using Typeface.createFromAsset() static method. Once the font is extracted, apply it to the text using setTypeface() method:


Heres the full code:


It is that easy!

You can use assets to store all sorts of files and read them byte by byte or using whats provided by the Android SDK, like the Typeface.createFromAsset() method just now.

Thats all for today.

Thanks for reading!

In this tutorial well make a demo application that applies scale, rotate and translate animations to a shape on the screen.

First of all we need to create the animation XML files.

Go to the res/anim/ directory of your project. The first file well add is rotate.xml:


Then goes scale.xml:


Then we add translate.xml animation, which is a set containing two translate animations that are executed in order:


Now go to activity_main.xml file. Add an ImageView there, set its layout_width and layout_height values to wrap_content. Set the gravity of the parent to center.


Now go to MainActivity.java class. First we declare the image and draw a red square onto it:


Add an onCreateOptionsMenu() function, which adds 3 buttons to the menu. Set the IDs of the menu items to the IDs of the animations:


In the onOptionsItemSelected() function, we get the animation out of the selected item using the id. Then we apply it to the image using startAnimation() method:


Simple as that. Full code:


Thats all for today.

Thanks for reading!

Updated tutorial for new versions >> http://codeoncloud.blogspot.com/2013/06/android-java-soap-web-service-access.html

In this tutorial Im going to demonstrate how we can access a java web service in Android application using ksoap2 library. This Android application also passes parameters to the web service.

First we have to create a web service & deploy it on Tomcat server.
Here is the sample code of java web service  Im going to access.

package com.testprops.ws;

public class TestPropts {
 public String testMyProps(String fname,String lname){
  return "First Name : "+fname+" Last Name : "+lname;
 }
}

Android application will pass parameters for fname & lname variables.
To create web service refer my these tutorials.
1. Create java web service in Eclipse using Axis2 (Part 01) 
2. Create java web service in Eclipse using Axis2 (Part 02) 

Following is the code for the Android application which invoke the web service. You have to use ksoap2 (You can download ksoap2 from here:::http://code.google.com/p/ksoap2-android/wiki/HowToUse?tm=2) library for this implementation. Read my comments carefully

package com.sendproperties.ws;

import org.ksoap2.SoapEnvelope;
import org.ksoap2.serialization.PropertyInfo;
import org.ksoap2.serialization.SoapObject;
import org.ksoap2.serialization.SoapPrimitive;
import org.ksoap2.serialization.SoapSerializationEnvelope;
import org.ksoap2.transport.HttpTransportSE;
import android.app.Activity;
import android.os.Bundle;

import android.widget.TextView;

public class SendValuesActivity extends Activity {
    private final String NAMESPACE = "http://ws.testprops.com";
    private final String URL = "http://175.157.143.117:8085/TestProperties/services/TestPropts?wsdl";
    private final String SOAP_ACTION = "http://ws.testprops.com/testMyProps";
    private final String METHOD_NAME = "testMyProps";
    /** Called when the activity is first created. */
    @Override
    public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
        super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
        setContentView(R.layout.main);
        
        SoapObject request = new SoapObject(NAMESPACE, METHOD_NAME); 
        
        String firstName = "Android";
        String lastName = "Program";
        
      //Pass value for fname variable of the web service
        PropertyInfo fnameProp =new PropertyInfo();
        fnameProp.setName("fname");//Define the variable name in the web service method
        fnameProp.setValue(firstName);//Define value for fname variable
        fnameProp.setType(String.class);//Define the type of the variable
        request.addProperty(fnameProp);//Pass properties to the variable
     
      //Pass value for lname variable of the web service
        PropertyInfo lnameProp =new PropertyInfo();
        lnameProp.setName("lname");
        lnameProp.setValue(lastName);
        lnameProp.setType(String.class);
        request.addProperty(lnameProp);
        
        SoapSerializationEnvelope envelope = new SoapSerializationEnvelope(SoapEnvelope.VER11);
        envelope.setOutputSoapObject(request);
        HttpTransportSE androidHttpTransport = new HttpTransportSE(URL);
        
        try {
            androidHttpTransport.call(SOAP_ACTION, envelope);
            SoapPrimitive response = (SoapPrimitive)envelope.getResponse();
           
     
            TextView tv = new TextView(this);
            tv.setText(response.toString());
            setContentView(tv);
  
        } catch (Exception e) {
            e.printStackTrace();
        }
    }
 }

You can find complete information about the implementation of Android application from these two posts.
1. Create java web service in Eclipse using Axis2 (Part 01) 
2. Create java web service in Eclipse using Axis2 (Part 02) 

URL in line 16 The URL of WSDL file. In my case it is " http://175.157.143.117:8085/TestProperties/services/TestPropts?wsdl"
blue colored is the ip of the server replace it with your ip & red colored is the port number.



Make appropriate changes according to your WSDL. Open your WSDL using Firefox or Chrome. Then you can easily find those values from the WSDL.
We have to add internet permission to the Android Manifest. After adding permission your Manifest should like follows.

Here is the final result



You can download sample projects:
Click here to download web service project
Click here to download Android project

If you find this post helpful dont forget to leave a comment. your comments encourage me to write!