Firestore - Add the extension

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.

Add the Extension

APM

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.firebase.Firestore

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.firebase.Firestore.ane # Firebase Firestore extension
| |____ com.distriqt.Firebase.ane           # Firebase 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.

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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.

Manual

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The following guide is used to manually install the extension, download dependencies and update the application descriptor. We highly recommend installing extensions using apm. Using apm will automate the installation and automatically handle updates and dependencies along with greatly simplifying the application descriptor generation.

First step is always to add the extension to your development environment.

Firebase Core

You must have gone through the setup of the Firebase Core extension before attempting to proceed with this extension.

Make sure you have added all the extensions required for the Firebase Core extension as outlined here.

Firebase Cloud Firestore

The main additional extension is the Firestore ANE, however you must add the Auth and Database extensions as well:

• com.distriqt.firebase.Firestore
• com.distriqt.firebase.Database
• com.distriqt.firebase.Auth

Download the extension from the repository and then follow the tutorial located here to add the extension to your development environment.

Android Support

The Android Support libraries encompass the Android Support, Android X and common Google libraries.

These libraries are specific to Android. There are no issues including these on all platforms, they are just required for Android.

This extension requires the following extensions:

• com.google.protobuflite
• android.browser
• com.google.android.recaptcha
• com.google.guava
• io.grpc

You can access these extensions here: https://github.com/distriqt/ANE-AndroidSupport.

Google Play Services

This ANE requires usage of certain aspects of the Google Play Services client library. The client library is available as a series of ANEs that you add into your applications packaging options. Each separate ANE provides a component from the Play Services client library and are used by different ANEs. These client libraries aren't packaged with this ANE as they are used by multiple ANEs and separating them will avoid conflicts, allowing you to use multiple ANEs in the one application.

This ANE requires the following Google Play Services:

• com.distriqt.playservices.Auth

You must include the above native extensions in your application along with this extension, and you need to ensure they are packaged with your application.

You can access the Google Play Services client library extensions here: https://github.com/distriqt/ANE-GooglePlayServices.

Square ANEs

Due to several of our ANE's using the Square open source libraries the libraries have been separated into a separate ANEs allowing you to avoid conflicts and duplicate definitions. This means that you need to include the some of the square native extensions in your application along with this extension.

You will add these extensions as you do with any other ANE, and you need to ensure it is packaged with your application.

This ANE requires the following Square extensions:

• com.distriqt.square.okhttp

You can access these extensions here: https://github.com/distriqt/ANE-SquareLibs.

Application Descriptor

APM

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

Manual

Extension IDs

The following should be added to your extensions node in your application descriptor to identify all the required ANEs in your application:

<extensions>
    <extensionID>com.distriqt.firebase.Firestore</extensionID>
    <extensionID>com.distriqt.firebase.Database</extensionID>

    <extensionID>com.distriqt.square.okhttp</extensionID>
    <extensionID>com.google.guava</extensionID>
    <extensionID>io.grpc</extensionID>
    <extensionID>com.google.protobuflite</extensionID>

    <!-- Firebase Auth -->
    <extensionID>com.distriqt.firebase.Auth</extensionID>
    <extensionID>androidx.browser</extensionID>
    <extensionID>com.distriqt.playservices.Auth</extensionID>
    <extensionID>com.google.android.recaptcha</extensionID>

    <!-- Firebase Core -->
    <extensionID>androidx.core</extensionID>
    <extensionID>com.distriqt.Core</extensionID>
    <extensionID>com.distriqt.Firebase</extensionID>
    <extensionID>com.distriqt.playservices.AdsIdentifier</extensionID>
    <extensionID>com.distriqt.playservices.Base</extensionID>
    <extensionID>com.distriqt.playservices.CloudMessaging</extensionID>
    <extensionID>com.google.android.datatransport</extensionID>
    <extensionID>com.google.firebase.core</extensionID>
    <extensionID>com.jetbrains.kotlin</extensionID>

</extensions>

Android

Manifest Additions

Add the following to your manifest additions.

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Ensure you:

• replace APPLICATION_PACKAGE with your AIR application's Java package name, something like air.com.distriqt.test. Generally this is your AIR application id prefixed by air. unless you have specified no air flair in your build options;
• you only have one <application> node in your manifest additions combining them if you have ones from other extensions;

<manifest android:installLocation="auto" >
  <uses-sdk android:minSdkVersion="23" android:targetSdkVersion="34"/>
  <uses-permission android:name="android.permission.INTERNET"/>
  <application>
    <activity android:name="com.distriqt.core.auth.AuthorisationActivity" android:exported="false" android:theme="@android:style/Theme.Translucent.NoTitleBar"/>
  </application>
</manifest>

iOS

Info Additions

Create a Cloud Firestore project

1. Open the Firebase Console and create a new project.

2. In the Database section, click the Get Started button for Cloud Firestore.

3. Select a starting mode for your Cloud Firestore Security Rules:

• Test mode: Good for getting started with the mobile and web client libraries, but allows anyone to read and overwrite your data. After testing, make sure to see the Secure your data section.
• Locked mode: Denies all reads and writes from mobile and web clients. Your authenticated application servers (C#, Go, Java, Node.js, PHP, Python, or Ruby) can still access your database.

4. Click Enable.