Apache Flex (Flex)
==================

    Apache Flex SDK is an application development framework for easily building
    Flash-based applications for mobile devices, web browsers, and desktops.

    Apache Flex 4.12.1 is a follow up release to Apache Flex 4.12.0. This version
    adds new features and implements bug fixes that were unavailable in previous
    versions.  It is compatible with most code written to target Adobe Flex 4.6.

    For detailed information about Apache Flex please visit
    http://flex.apache.org/

    Apache Flex is a large project with many pieces.  The framework is
    implemented in ActionScript and the compiler is implemented in Java.

    Currently supported platforms include:

        Microsoft Windows
        Mac OS X
        Apple iOS
        Google Android
        RIM BlackBerry
        Linux

    Apache Flex is the software evolution of the popular Adobe Flex SDK project.

    The community surrounding Flex is vast, diverse, distributed globally, and
    with all levels of proficiency in software development.

    There has been more that 30,000 installs of Apache Flex. The Apache Flex web
    site gets 3 quarters of a million page views a year and more than 250,000
    unique visitors a year.


Getting the convenience packages for Apache Flex
================================================

    The Apache Flex SDK Installer is an application that simplifies the download
    and installation of the Apache Flex SDK and its (required) components. It is
    aimed at anyone who wants to use the latest release of the Apache Flex SDK,
    but who might not necessarily be familiar with the tools and procedures
    required to compile the Apache Flex SDK from source code. The application
    will grab the binary distribution of the SDK from apache.org or one of its
    mirrors, install it onto your computer and prepare it for use with your
    favorite IDE such as Adobe Flash Builder or JetBrains IntelliJ IDEA.

    You can get the SDK Installer from the Apache Flex website at

      http://flex.apache.org/installer.html

    The SDK installer requires the Adobe AIR runtime to be installed.

    Starting with Apache Flex 4.12 the binary distribution can be installed
    using only ANT in addition to the AIR installer mentioned above. This is
    the recommended method for Linux users.  More information about installing
    the binary installtion with ANT can be found on our wiki at :

      https://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/display/FLEX/Installation+help#Installationhelp-Antinstaller

Getting the latest sources via git
==================================

    Getting the source code is the recommended way to get Apache Flex.  We also
    offer an automated installer along with binary distributions on our website
    at http://flex.apache.org/.

    You can always checkout the latest source via git using the following
    command:

	 git clone https://git-wip-us.apache.org/repos/asf/flex-sdk.git sdk
	 cd sdk
	 git checkout develop

    An Apache Flex SDK also requires source code from other Apache Flex git
    repositories.  To get the latest source via git for the Text Layout
    Framework use the following command:

	 git clone https://git-wip-us.apache.org/repos/asf/flex-tlf.git tlf
	 cd tlf
	 git checkout develop

    In an Apache Flex source code package hosted on the distribution server or
    one of its mirrors, the Text Layout Framework code is already included in
    the package.  This is also true for the convenience package.

    Linux support is currently experimental and you may run into issues. Apache
    Flex would like to see a fully supported Linux release, but we need support
    from the community in order to do that. Please help out if you can.

    For further information visit http://flex.apache.org/download-source.html

Building Apache Flex 4.12.1
=========================

    Apache Flex is a large project. It requires some build tools which must be
    installed prior to building Flex and it depends on some external software
    which are downloaded as part of the build process.  Some of these have
    different licenses.  See the Software Dependencies section for more
    information on the external software dependencies.

    From Apache's perspective, the Adobe Flash Player and Adobe AIR have
    excluded licenses so they can not be bundled with the Apache Flex binaries.
    They must be installed prior to building Apache Flex.

    Linux support is currently experimental and while it is possible to compile
    the SDK it has not been fully tested so you may run into issues.

Install Prerequisites
---------------------

    Before building Flex you must install the following software and set the
    corresponding environment variables using absolute file paths.  Relative
    file paths will result in build errors.

    The environment variables PLAYERGLOBAL_HOME, AIR_HOME, FLASHPLAYER_DEBUGGER,
    TLF_HOME, and ADOBE_EXTENSION_MANAGER can also be set in the property file
    called env.properties. See the env-template.properties file for
    instructions.

    The Adobe Flash Player playerglobal.swc is needed to compile all the
    components
    with the exception of the airframework and airspark components which require
    airglobal.swc from the AIR Integration Kit.  The AIR Integration kit is also
    needed to build and debug mobile applications.  The Adobe Flash Player
    content debugger is used by checkintests and other pieces of the test
    subsystem to run compiled applications.

    The build scripts assume that the source code folder containing the Text
    Layout Framework (tlf) folder is at the same level as the sdk folder or
    located inside the frameworks/projects folder.   If this is not true, then
    you must set the TLF_HOME environment variable to point to the tlf folder.

    ==================================================================================
    SOFTWARE                                    ENVIRONMENT VARIABLE (absolute paths)
    ==================================================================================

    Java SDK 1.6 or greater (*1)                JAVA_HOME
        (for Java 1.7 see note at (*2))

    Ant 1.7.1 or greater (*1)                   ANT_HOME
        (for Java 1.7 see note at (*2))

    Adobe AIR Integration Kit (*3)              AIR_HOME

    Adobe Flash Player Content Debugger (*4)    FLASHPLAYER_DEBUGGER

    Adobe Flash Player playerglobal swcs (*5)   PLAYERGLOBAL_HOME

    Adobe Extension Manager CS5 (*6)            ADOBE_EXTENSION_MANAGER

    Text Layout Framework                       TLF_HOME

    ==================================================================================

    *1) The bin directories for ANT_HOME and JAVA_HOME should be added to your
        PATH.

        On Windows, set PATH to

            PATH=%PATH%;%ANT_HOME%\bin;%JAVA_HOME%\bin

        On the Mac (bash), set PATH to

            export PATH="$PATH:$ANT_HOME/bin:$JAVA_HOME/bin"

         On Linux make sure you path include ANT_HOME and JAVA_HOME.

    *2)  If you are using Java SDK 1.7 or greater on a Mac you must use Ant 1.8
         or greater. If you use Java 1.7 with Ant 1.7, ant reports the java
         version as 1.6 so the JVM args for the data model (-d32/-d64) will not
         be set correctly and you will get compile errors.

    *3) The Adobe AIR integration kit for Windows can be downloaded from:
           http://airdownload.adobe.com/air/win/download/13.0/AdobeAIRSDK.zip

         The Adobe AIR integration kit for Mac can be downloaded from:
            http://airdownload.adobe.com/air/mac/download/13.0/AdobeAIRSDK.tbz2

          The Adobe AIR integration kit for Linux can be downloaded from:
            http://airdownload.adobe.com/air/lin/download/2.6/AdobeAIRSDK.tbz2

        This version of Apache Flex was certified for use with AIR 13.0, and
        should be compatible with other versions of AIR newer than 3.1. However
        it hasn't been fully tested on AIR 3.2, 3.3, 3.5, 3.6 or 3.7.

        Download the AIR SDK for your platform and unzip it. Set AIR_HOME to the
        absolute path of the AIR SDK directory.

    *4) The Adobe Flash Player content debuggers can be found here:
            http://www.adobe.com/support/flashplayer/downloads.html

        This version of Apache Flex was certified for use with Adobe Flash
        Player 11.1, and is compatible with versions 10.2 through 13.0. It has
        been tested with versions 11.1, 11.7, 11.8, 11.9 and 12.0 on Windows
        and Mac. It has been compiled against other Adobe Flash Player versions
        but has not been fully tested. It has not been fully tested on Linux.

        On Windows, set FLASHPLAYER_DEBUGGER to the absolute path including the
        filename of the FlashPlayerDebugger.exe. Note the filename of flash
        player debugger maybe different.
           e.g. C:\MyPath\FlashPlayerDebugger.exe

        On the Mac, set FLASHPLAYER_DEBUGGER to the absolute path of
        Flash Player Debugger.app/Contents/MacOS/Flash Player Debugger

        On Linux, set FLASHPLAYER_DEBUGGER to the absolute path of
        flashplayerdebugger

    *5) The Adobe Flash Player playerglobal.swc for 11.1 can be downloaded from:
            http://download.macromedia.com/get/flashplayer/updaters/11/playerglobal11_1.swc

        Use URL above to download playerglobal11_1.swc. Create the directory,
        player/11.1 and copy playerglobal11_1.swc to
        player/11.1/playerglobal.swc.

        Set PLAYERGLOBAL_HOME to the absolute path of the player directory (not
        including the version subdirectory). The target-player option controls
        which PLAYERGLOBAL_HOME subdirectory is used.

        Other more recent versions of Adobe Flash Player playerglobal.swc can be
        downloaded from:
            http://download.macromedia.com/get/flashplayer/updaters/11/playerglobal11_2.swc
            http://download.macromedia.com/get/flashplayer/updaters/11/playerglobal11_3.swc
            http://download.macromedia.com/get/flashplayer/updaters/11/playerglobal11_4.swc
            http://download.macromedia.com/get/flashplayer/updaters/11/playerglobal11_5.swc
            http://download.macromedia.com/get/flashplayer/updaters/11/playerglobal11_6.swc
            http://download.macromedia.com/get/flashplayer/updaters/11/playerglobal11_7.swc
            http://download.macromedia.com/get/flashplayer/updaters/11/playerglobal11_8.swc
            http://download.macromedia.com/get/flashplayer/updaters/11/playerglobal11_9.swc
            http://download.macromedia.com/get/flashplayer/updaters/12/playerglobal12_0.swc
            http://download.macromedia.com/get/flashplayer/updaters/13/playerglobal13_0.swc

        These can be used with Apache Flex but not all have not been fully
        tested.

    *6) The Adobe Extension Manager is only required for those creating releases
        or testing changes to the flash-integration swc.  Note that if you
        change APIs on classes that flash-integration depends on, you may need
        to update flash-integration.

        The Adobe Extension Manager for Windows can be downloaded from:
            http://download.macromedia.com/pub/dw_exchange/extension_manager/win/AdobeExtensionManager5All.zip

         The Adobe Extension Manager for Mac can be downloaded from:
            http://download.macromedia.com/pub/dw_exchange/extension_manager/mac/AdobeExtensionManager5All.dmg

        On Windows, set ADOBE_EXTENSION_MANAGER to the absolute path of "Adobe
        Extension Manager CS5.exe"

        On Mac, set ADOBE_EXTENSION_MANAGER to the absolute path of "Adobe
        Extension Manager CS5.app"

        On Linux, no Adobe Extension Manager exists and there's nothing that
        needs to be done here.

FlashPlayer Configuration
-------------------------

    For testing, the Adobe Flash Player's mm.cfg file must have the following
    entries

        ErrorReportingEnable=1
        TraceOutputFileEnable=1

    and a FlashPlayerTrust file must allow local SWFs to access local files.

Other Locale Support
--------------------

    The Apache Flex SDK defaults to using the en_US locale and SDK error
    messages are by default displayed in American English.

    To compile the SDK for another locale either:

    Change the locale in the build.properties file to have a value other than
    "en_US".  For this new locale to take effect the SDK needs to be recompiled.
    For example, to use the Australian English locale change locale to have a
    value of "en_AU"
    like so:

        locale = en_AU

    OR

    Compile the SDK with a -Dlocale=<locale> option, where <locale> is the new
    locale to compile the SDK against.

    To compile all supported locales, which may take some time, use

        ant other.locales

    The list of supported locales currently include:
        da_DK	el_GR	en_GB	fi_FI	it_IT	nb_NO	pt_PT	zh_CN
        de_CH	en_AU	en_US	fr_CH	ja_JP	nl_NL	ru_RU	zh_TW
        de_DE	en_CA	es_ES	fr_FR	ko_KR	pt_BR	sv_SE

    The Apache Flex SDK has only been tested for the en_US locale, however there
    is unlikely to be any issues with a SDK compiled for another locales.

Adobe Flash Player Version Support
----------------------------------

    The Apache Flex SDK defaults to using the Adobe Flash Player 11.1. The SDK
    can be used with Flash Player versions 10.2, 10.3, 11.0, 11.1, 11.2, 11.3,
    11.4, 11.5, 11.6, 11.7, 11.8, 11.9, 12.0 and 13.0.

    It is recommended that you update to the latest version of Adobe Flash
    Player.  Newer versions of the Adobe Flash player address security
    vulnerabilities, fix bugs/issues, increase stability, and implement new
    features.

    To use the SDK for another version of the Adobe Flash Player either:

    Change the flex-config.xml configuration file to specify another version of
    the Adobe Flash Player.

    OR

    Change the playerglobal.version in the build.properties file to have a value
    other than "11.1". For this change to take effect the SDK needs to be
    recompiled.  For example to compile against the latest version of the Adobe
    Flash Player set the value of playerglobal.version to be "12.0" like so:

        playerglobal.version = 13.0

    OR

    Compile the SDK with a -Dplayerglobal.version=<version> option, where
    <version> is the Adobe Flash Player version to compile the SDK against.


    Different versions of the Adobe Flash Player require different versions of
    playerglobal.swc.

    These can be found at:

    http://download.macromedia.com/get/flashplayer/installers/archive/playerglobal/playerglobal10_2.swc
    http://download.macromedia.com/get/flashplayer/installers/archive/playerglobal/playerglobal10_3.swc
    http://download.macromedia.com/get/flashplayer/updaters/11/playerglobal11_0.swc
    http://download.macromedia.com/get/flashplayer/updaters/11/playerglobal11_1.swc
    http://download.macromedia.com/get/flashplayer/updaters/11/playerglobal11_2.swc
    http://download.macromedia.com/get/flashplayer/updaters/11/playerglobal11_3.swc
    http://download.macromedia.com/get/flashplayer/updaters/11/playerglobal11_4.swc
    http://download.macromedia.com/get/flashplayer/updaters/11/playerglobal11_5.swc
    http://download.macromedia.com/get/flashplayer/updaters/11/playerglobal11_6.swc
    http://download.macromedia.com/get/flashplayer/updaters/11/playerglobal11_7.swc
    http://download.macromedia.com/get/flashplayer/updaters/11/playerglobal11_8.swc
    http://download.macromedia.com/get/flashplayer/updaters/11/playerglobal11_9.swc
    http://download.macromedia.com/get/flashplayer/updaters/12/playerglobal12_0.swc
    http://download.macromedia.com/get/flashplayer/updaters/13/playerglobal13_0.swc

    Copy the target playerglobal.swc to the directory:

        frameworks/libs/player/<version>/playerglobal.swc

    Where <version> is the major and minor version numbers of the Adobe Flash
    Player separated by a period or full stop.

    If all of the playerglobal swcs where installed the frameworks/libs/player
    directory structure would look like this.

        /frameworks
            /libs
                /player
                    /10.2
                         /playerglobal.swc
                    /10.3
                         /playerglobal.swc
                    /11.0
                         /playerglobal.swc
                    /11.2
                         /playerglobal.swc
                    /11.2
                         /playerglobal.swc
                    /11.3
                         /playerglobal.swc
                    /11.4
                         /playerglobal.swc
                    /11.5
                         /playerglobal.swc
                    /11.6
                         /playerglobal.swc
                    /11.7
                         /playerglobal.swc
                    /11.8
                         /playerglobal.swc
                    /11.9
                         /playerglobal.swc
                    /12.0
                         /playerglobal.swc
                    /13.0
                         /playerglobal.swc

    Apache Flex has been tested with Adobe Flash Player 11.1, 11.5, 11.7, 11.8,
    11.9, 12.0 nd 13.0 on Windows and Mac.

    Apache Flex has not been tested on Linux so some issue may exist in this
    release.

    It compiles against other Adobe Flash Player versions and is expected to
    work but their may be some issues, particularly with the earlier 10.2 and
    10.3 versions of the Adobe Flash Player.

Software Dependencies
---------------------

    Apache Flex uses third-party code that will be downloaded as part of the
    Apache Flex build.  In addition, there is some optional third-party code
    that you can choose to download if you would like to take advantage of the
    features offered and you agree to the license terms.

    The Apache Version 2.0 license is in the LICENSE file.

    The following dependencies have licenses which are, or are compatible with,
    the Apache Version 2.0 license.  You will not be prompted to acknowledge the
    download.  Most of the jars are installed in lib/external.

        batik - http://archive.apache.org/dist/xmlgraphics/batik/batik-1.6.zip
        commons-collections - http://archive.apache.org/dist/commons/collections/binaries/commons-collections-3.0.tar.gz
        commons-discovery - http://archive.apache.org/dist/commons/discovery/binaries/commons-discovery-0.2.tar.gz
        commons-logging - http://archive.apache.org/dist/commons/logging/binaries/commons-logging-1.0.4.tar.gz
        javacc - http://java.net/projects/javacc/downloads/download/javacc-5.0.tar.gz
        saxon9 - http://sourceforge.net/projects/saxon/files/Saxon-B/9.1.0.8/saxonb9-1-0-8j.zip/download
        velocity - http://archive.apache.org/dist/velocity/engine/1.4/velocity-1.4.tar.gz
        xalan - http://archive.apache.org/dist/xml/xalan-j/binaries/xalan-j_2_6_0-bin.tar.gz
        xerces - http://archive.apache.org/dist/xerces/j/Xerces-J-bin.2.9.1.zip

    The following dependencies have licenses which Apache considers to be
    reciprocal licenses so you will be prompted to acknowledge the license
    before the software is downloaded to your system. These files are installed
    in frameworks/libs.

        osmf.swc

        Open Source Media Framework v1.0 used for video components

        This file is extracted from:
        http://sourceforge.net/projects/osmf.adobe/files/OSMF%201.0%20%28final%20source%2C%20ASDocs%2C%20PDF%20guides%2C%20and%20release%20notes%29/OSMF_1.0.zip/download

        This software is released under the Mozilla Public License Version 1.1:
        <http://www.mozilla.org/MPL/>

    The following dependencies have licenses which Apache considers to be not
    compatible with the Apache License Version 2.0. You will be prompted to read
    and agree to the license terms of the dependency before the software can be 
    downloaded to your system.
    These are optional components which enable additional features.  They are
    installed in libs/external/optional.

    flex-messaging-common.jar
        Provides integration with Adobe BlazeDS.

        This files are extracted from:
        http://fpdownload.adobe.com/pub/flex/sdk/builds/flex4.6/flex_sdk_4.6.0.23201B.zip

        This software is released under an Adobe license:
        <http://www.adobe.com/products/eulas/pdfs/adobe_flex_software_development_kit-combined-20110916_0930.pdf>

    flex-fontkit.jar
    afe.jar, adt.jar
    aglj40.jar
    rideau.jar
        Adobe proprietary software which provides embedded font support.

        These jars are extracted from:
        http://fpdownload.adobe.com/pub/flex/sdk/builds/flex4.6/flex_sdk_4.6.0.23201B.zip

        This software is released under an Adobe license:
        <http://www.adobe.com/products/eulas/pdfs/adobe_flex_software_development_kit-combined-20110916_0930.pdf>

Using the Binary Distribution
-----------------------------

    You must download the third-party dependencies.

    When you have all the prerequisites in place and the environment variables
    set, (see Install Prerequisites above -- you cannot use the env.properties
    file to set the environment variables for these steps.), use

        cd <flex.dir>/frameworks
        ant thirdparty-downloads

    Additionally, you will need to build the RSLS for the SDK before you run the
    batch files.

        cd <flex.dir>
        ant frameworks-rsls

    To use this SDK in a IDE like Flash Builder 4.6 or 4.7 the SDK needs
    several other files to be packaged and integrated with the Apache Flex SDK.

	If you have an existing installation of Flash Builder run:

		/ide/constructFlexForIDE.sh (on Mac and Linux)
		/ide/constructFlexForIDE.bat (on Windows)

	This will create an Apache Flex 4.12.1 SDK that can be used with Flash
        Builder by copying the required files from the Adobe Flex 4.6 SDK.

	To create an SDK for other IDE or if you want to use Adobe AIR 13.0
        (rather than AIR 3.1 contained in Adobe Flex 4.6) run:

		/ide/flashbuilder/makeApacheFlexForIDE.sh (on Mac and Linux)
		/ide/flashbuilder/makeApacheFlexForIDE.bat (on Windows)

	This will create an Apache Flex 4.12.1 SDK that can be used by an IDE by
    downloading Adobe Flex 4.6 SDK and Adobe AIR 13.0.

Building the Framework in a Binary Distribution
-----------------------------------------------

    The source for most of the framework is included in the binary distribution.
    It can be useful if you wish to debug and/or extend components.

    When you have all the prerequisites in place and the environment variables
    set, (see Install Prerequisites above), use

        cd <flex.dir>/frameworks
        ant main        (or just ant since the default target is main)

    to download the third-party dependencies and build the Flex framework.  You 
    may be prompted to acknowledge some of the downloads.  Since the third-party
    dependencies take a little while to download and they don't change very
    often, they are not cleaned with the regular clean target.

    To clean the build, of everything other than the downloaded third-party
    dependencies use

        ant clean

    To clean the build, of everything, including the downloaded third-party
    dependencies use

        ant super-clean (which is just thirdparty-clean followed by clean)

Building the Source in the Source Distribution
----------------------------------------------

    The source for both the Flex compiler and the Flex framework is included in
    the source distribution.  The compiler is in the modules directory and the
    framework is in the frameworks directory.

	Because the sdk uses the Text Layout Framework, you will have to clone
        it too and link it to the textLayout project of the sdk:

	cd <flex.dir>/..
	git clone https://git-wip-us.apache.org/repos/asf/flex-tlf.git tlf

    When you have all the prerequisites in place and the environment variables
    set (see Install Prerequisites above), use

        cd <flex.dir>
        ant main        (or just ant since the default target is main)

    to download the thirdparty dependencies and build the source.  You may be
    prompted to acknowledge and/or confirm some of the downloads.  Since the
    third-party dependencies take a little while to download and they don't
    change very often, they are not cleaned with the regular clean target.

    If you would like to build the RSLs, use

        ant frameworks-rsls

    To clean the build, of everything other than the downloaded third-party
    dependencies use

        ant clean

    To clean the build, of everything, including the downloaded third-party
    dependencies use

        ant super-clean (which is just thirdparty-clean followed by clean)

    To generate a source distribution package and a binary distribution package
    use

        ant -Dbuild.number=<YYYYMMDD> -Dbuild.noprompt= release

    The packages can be found in the "out" subdirectory.

    To build the ASDoc package

        ant asdoc-package

    To get a brief listing of all the targets type

        ant -projecthelp


Thanks for using Apache Flex.  Enjoy!

                                          The Apache Flex Project
                                          <http://flex.apache.org>