Launch Adobe AIR app file (*.apk) from another Adobe Air application

Question

I want to create the update mechanism of my Adobe Air-based Android app. In my special case with a private, very small app audience I use a direct distribution (without Google Play, via phisical installing on the users device) of the my application apk-file. But also I need to be able to install updates to it automatically (Let's say it will be a button 'Check updates' in my app UI). Can anybody help me with this task? How can I create this?

Now I have the idea: I try to download the file with my app (using loaders and write the file using the File api) to the user storage... Then I want to use any Air Native Extension to launch that file. Is there any already created ANE to do that?

Yasuyuki Uno Yasuyuki Uno · Accepted Answer · 2015-08-19T09:12:19

In my case for create auto update mechanism, I got local version number from app.xml and latest number from server. Here is my settings.

app.xml

...
<name>mysomeapp</name>
<!-- A string value of the format <0-999>.<0-999>.<0-999> that represents application version which can be used to check for application upgrade. 
Values can also be 1-part or 2-part. It is not necessary to have a 3-part value.
An updated version of application must have a versionNumber value higher than the previous version. Required for namespace >= 2.5 . -->
<versionNumber>1.0.1</versionNumber>
...

actionscript

private var appVersion: String;
public function init():void
{
    // Get local versionnumber from app.xml
    var appDescriptor:XML = NativeApplication.nativeApplication.applicationDescriptor;
    var ns:Namespace = appDescriptor.namespace();
    appVersion = appDescriptor.ns::versionNumber;   // In this case, it returns "1.0.1".

    // Get latest versionnumber from server
    var httpservice: HTTPService = new HTTPService();
    httpservice.url = "http://myserver/foobar/version";
    httpservice.method = URLRequestMethod.GET;
    httpservice.addEventListener(ResultEvent.RESULT, checkVersionResult);
    httpservice.send();
}

public function checkVersionResult(e: ResultEvent): void
{
    // Compare latest number with local number.
    if (e.result != appVersion)
    {
        // If the local version is not latest, download latest app from server.
        navigateToURL(new URLRequest("http://myserver/foobar/androidAppDownload"));
    }
}

Launch Adobe AIR app file (*.apk) from another Adobe Air application

1 Answers