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Google AdMob

This section describes how to setup your AIR application to use AdMob with this extension.

You work hard on your app. AdMob makes earning revenue easy with in-app ads, actionable insights, and powerful, easy-to-use tools that grow your app business.

You should make sure you have been through the process of creating an AdMob account by following the guide below:

Install​

The simplest way to install and manage your AIR native extensions and libraries is to use the AIR Package Manager (apm). We highly recommend using apm, as it will handle downloading all required dependencies and manage your application descriptor (Android manifest additions, iOS info additions etc).

However you can choose to install it manually, as you would have done in the past.

info

Note: All of the commands below should be run in a terminal / command prompt in the root directory of your application, generally the level above your source directory.

If you don't have an APM project setup, expand the guide below to setup an APM project before installing the extension.

Setup APM

Install APM​

If you haven't installed apm follow the install guide on airsdk.dev.

Setup an APM project​

You will need an APM project for your application.

There are many ways to do this and for more options see the APM documentation. Here we will just initialise a new empty project:

apm init

Check your github token​

We use github to secure our extensions so you must have created a github personal access token and configured apm to use it.

To do this create a token using this guide from github and then set it in your apm config using:

apm config set github_token ghp_XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

If you don't do this correctly you may find the install will fail.

Install the extension​

Install the extension by running: 

apm install com.distriqt.Adverts

This will download and install the extension, required assets, and all dependencies.

Once complete apm will have created something like the following file structure: 

.
|____ ane
| |____ com.distriqt.Adverts.ane    # Adverts extension
| |____ [dependencies]
|____ apm_packages                  # cache directory - ignore
|____ project.apm                   # apm project file

  • Add the ane directory to your IDE. See the tutorials located here on adding an extension to your IDE.

  • You must set the android and iOS Admob application identifiers you setup in the Admob console. This will allow apm to automatically insert them into the correct position in your application descriptor. Call the following to step through the configuration values for this extension:

apm project config set com.distriqt.Adverts
info

We suggest you use the locations directly in your builds rather than copying the files elsewhere. The reason for this is if you ever go to update the extensions using apm that these updates will be pulled into your build automatically.

Application Descriptor​

Updating your application descriptor will insert the required extensionID's and generate the manifest and info additions for your application.

You update your application descriptor by running:

apm generate app-descriptor src/MyApp-app.xml

Change the path (src/MyApp-app.xml) to point to your application descriptor.

caution

This will modify your application descriptor replacing the manifest additions and info additions with the ones generated from apm.

You should backup your application descriptor before running this command to ensure you don't lose any information.

If you need to insert custom data into these sections see the guides for Android and iOS

Android AD_ID considerations​

On Android you will find that apm automatically inserts the AD_ID permission to your application descriptor.

If you wish to remove this you can create a custom android manifest addition:

apm generate config android

Then edit the file created at config/android/AndroidManifest.xml as follows:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<manifest xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android" xmlns:tools="http://schemas.android.com/tools">

    <uses-permission android:name="com.google.android.gms.permission.AD_ID" tools:node="remove"/>

    <!-- other custom manifest additions -->

</manifest>

Then when you generate the manifest additions (as above) it will remove this permission if it was added from any of the extensions you have in use.

Checking for Support​

You can use the isSupported flag to determine if this extension is supported on the current platform and device.

This allows you to react to whether the functionality is available on the device and provide an alternative solution if not.

if (Adverts.isSupported)
{
    // Functionality here
}

Check Google Play Services Availability​

This extension requires the use of Google Play Services.

You should use the GoogleApiAvailability helper in the com.distriqt.playservices.Base ANE. The documentation for this class is available in the Google Play Services wiki.

For example:

import com.distriqt.extension.playservices.base.ConnectionResult;
import com.distriqt.extension.playservices.base.GoogleApiAvailability;
var result:int = GoogleApiAvailability.instance.isGooglePlayServicesAvailable();
if (result != ConnectionResult.SUCCESS)
{
    if (GoogleApiAvailability.instance.isUserRecoverableError( result ))
    {
        GoogleApiAvailability.instance.showErrorDialog( result );
    }
    else
    {
        trace( "Google Play Services aren't available on this device" );
    }
}
else
{
    trace( "Google Play Services are Available" );
}

If Google Play Services aren't available then you may not be able to use the functionality in this extension.