Skip to main content

Add the Extension

Here we will show you how to add the extension to your development environment and make the necessary changes to your application descriptor to correctly support the extension.

The extension supports different services and most likely you will not want to use them all in your applications. As such we have produced different "variants" of the extension (and air package) which include support for different services while providing exactly the same Actionscript API.

However while the API is identical there are varying dependencies and application descriptor additions required. As such we have broken the guide for adding the extension into the various services, each showing the variant(s) that support the service and the required additions to your application.

Variants

The base variant supports the most common services, being:

  • Apple In-App Purchases;
  • Google Play Billing;

The other variants generally include these services as well but also include additional stores. If you are looking to support them we suggest using the following install guides.

The guide below will focus on Play Billing and Apple In-App Purchases.

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.InAppBilling

This will download and install the base variant of the extension, including the required assets, and all dependencies.

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

.
|____ ane
| |____ com.distriqt.InAppBilling.ane   # InAppBilling 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.
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.

Variants​

You will find there are several variants of this extension available and each is listed as a separate package. A variant contains different supported services allowing you to integrate only the services you require in your application.

To install a variant you will need to modify the install command as follows:

apm install com.distriqt.InAppBilling-VARIANT

For example:

apm install com.distriqt.InAppBilling-Amazon

See the individual section on each variant for more details.

caution

Only install one variant of an package. The base variant is installed when no variant is specified and cannot be included alongside another variant. You will likely get an error if you attempt to install multiple variants with apm

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

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 (InAppBilling.isSupported)
{
    // Functionality here
}
note

This only checks if there is some functionality supported, not whether a particular billing service is available.