Professional Flash® Lite® Mobile Development

Chapter 2. Getting Started

WHAT'S IN THIS CHAPTER?

• Using Adobe Flash CS4 and Device Central CS4 to create new Flash mobile projects

• Importing device sets into Device Central CS4

• Comparing features across multiple devices in Device Central CS4

• Creating a "Hello World" Flash Lite example

• Using the Device Central CS4 emulator

• Examining the core features of Device Central CS4 to aid in development and testing

• Understanding memory and CPU considerations for developing Flash Lite content

• Testing on devices

In this chapter, we'll take a look at the tools used in developing Flash Lite mobile applications, including the authoring environment Adobe Flash CS4 Professional and the device emulator and testing software Adobe Device Central CS4.

DEVELOPING FOR FLASH DEVICES

Given the variety of Flash Lite–supported devices now available, it shouldn't be surprising that not all of them have the same features. In the early days of developing Flash mobile applications, developers had no dedicated tools for previewing content, and they had to own a compatible device running the version of Flash Lite they needed. This made it very difficult for developers to know whether their content would run the way they intended on other devices.

Things have certainly come a long way on that front, as the tools for developing Flash mobile content have become a lot more sophisticated. In this section we'll briefly cover the tools you'll use to create Flash mobile content, before focusing our attention on Device Central.

What ...