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.

Install

APM

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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.PDFReader

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

Dependencies

Many of our extensions use some common libraries, for example, the Android Support libraries.

We have to separate these libraries into separate extensions in order to avoid multiple versions of the libraries being included in your application and causing packaging conflicts. This means that you need to include some additional extensions in your application along with the main extension file.

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

Core

The Core ANE is required by this ANE. You must include and package this extension in your application.

The Core ANE doesn't provide any functionality in itself but provides support libraries and frameworks used by our extensions. It also includes some centralised code for some common actions that can cause issues if they are implemented in each individual extension.

You can access this extension here: https://github.com/distriqt/ANE-Core.

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:

• androidx.core
• com.jetbrains.kotlin

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

Note: The Google Play Services and Android Support ANEs are only required on Android devices. There are no issues packaging these extensions with all platforms as there are default implementations available which will allow your code to package without errors however if you are only building an iOS application feel free to remove the Google Play Services and Android Support ANEs from your application.

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.PDFReader</extensionID>
    <extensionID>com.distriqt.Core</extensionID>
    <extensionID>androidx.core</extensionID>
    <extensionID>com.jetbrains.kotlin</extensionID>
</extensions>

Android

Manifest Additions

The PDF Reader ANE requires a few additions to the manifest to be able to start certain activities and provide the PDF files. You should add the listing below to your manifest. You will need to replace the any occurences of APPLICATION_PACKAGE with your applications package name (generally your application id prefixed with air. eg: air.com.distriqt.test).

<manifest android:installLocation="auto">
    <uses-permission android:name="android.permission.INTERNET"/>
    
    <application>
        <activity android:name="com.distriqt.extension.pdfreader.pdfview.activities.OpenPDFActivity" android:theme="@android:style/Theme.Translucent.NoTitleBar" />
        
        <provider
            android:name="com.distriqt.extension.pdfreader.content.FileProvider"
            android:authorities="APPLICATION_PACKAGE.pdfreaderfileprovider"
            android:grantUriPermissions="true"
            android:exported="false">
            <meta-data
                android:name="android.support.FILE_PROVIDER_PATHS"
                android:resource="@xml/distriqt_paths" />
        </provider>
            
    </application>
</manifest>

iOS

InfoAdditions

If you are going to be downloading PDFs from your server you need to make sure your access will satisfy the Apple App Transport security (i.e. access content via https) or else you will need to override the setting in the info additions.

The following shows how to override all loads, however it is suggested you only override the particular servers you will use, so take care when using this setting.

<key>NSAppTransportSecurity</key>
<dict>
    <key>NSAllowsArbitraryLoads</key>
    <true/>
</dict>

Supported

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 (PDFReader.isSupported)
{
    // Functionality here
}