Create Apollo Apps in Flash CS3

Grant Skinner and his team have converted my extension into a panel and added some new functionality, check it out here

Ive created a Flash Extension that makes it a peace of cake to test your Flash Movies inside of the Apollo runtime, straight from Adobe Flash CS3 instead of using Flex Builder. You will need Flash CS3, the Apollo SDK and the latest Macromedia Extension Manager. The extension now works on Windows and Mac OSX.

Im also working on a Package for Apollo extension for Flash CS3 which will allow you to Package up your Apollo application into an .air file for distribution, once you have finished development. More news on that soon.

Moving on, the Test in Apollo extension adds a new command in the Commands menu: Commands > Test in Apollo

Download the Test in Apollo extension here.
Download the Apollo SDK from here.

For those that are interested, the source code is available here.

The first time you run the Command you are asked to select the location of the Apollo SDK folder on your local machine. If the extension cannot find the Apollo SDK folder, ie.. if you move it, or delete it, then again you will be asked to tell the extension its new location.

The first time you run the Command for a particular Flash Document you are asked to enter some details about your application so that the extension can automatically generate the Apollo Application Descriptor xml file for you. This file will be put in the same folder as the Flash Document, and you can edit the xml file yourself afterwards if you like. It is only generated once. If you delete it, it will be created again.

From then on, you can just use Commands > Test in Apollo to see your Flash Movie inside of Apollo. So now you can create Apollo Applications straight from Flash, if you prefer.

To create an Apollo application inside of Flash you need to do a few things first:

1. Copy the apolloglobal.swc from the frameworks\libs\apollo folder of the Apollo SDK
2. Paste it into the \en\Configuration\ActionScript 3.0\Classes folder of your Adobe Flash CS3 installation
3. Delete the playerglobal.swc file that is inside of that same folder
4. Rename the apolloglobal.swc file to playerglobal.swc

From then on, aslong as your Publish Settings are set to Export to Flash Player 9 with Actionscript 3 then you should have no problems using the Apollo API, writing Apollo Applications and compiling them inside of Flash CS3.