Configuring the AIR SDK to package AIR for Android applications on Windows

If we are using the open source AIR SDK (Software Development Kit) with another IDE or even editing our project in a simple text editor, we can still compile applications for distribution on Android through command line tools.

How to do it…

If you do not already have the Adobe AIR SDK, you must first download it from http://www.adobe.com/products/air/sdk/ and extract the files into a directory on your hard drive, C:\SDKs\AIR, for example. You must also set a PATH variable in your operating system pointing to the bin directory underneath the AIR SDK.

If you are using a Windows system, set the environment variable through the following steps:

  1. Open the System Properties dialog. You can reach this dialog in many ways, the most direct being a right-click on My Computer. Then select Properties.
  2. Choose Advanced system settings from the left hand menu.
  3. Click on the button at the bottom of this window that says Environment Variables…
  4. Click upon the PATH variable in this window and select Edit:
  5. Now, simply add the location of your bin directory into the set of variables: If the last item in your variable value list has not been terminated with a semicolon, you must add one before every new item. For example: C:\SDKs\AIR\bin.
  6. That should do it. Hit OK a few times and bring up the command prompt to verify that we've set this up correctly. Type in adt -version and hit Enter. If all is well, ADT will spit back a version string that looks something like adt version "2.5.0.00000".

How it works…

Setting a PATH variable on the operating system allows us to be able to invoke the AIR Android compiler, ADT, from anywhere in our system without having to traverse file directories and specify long path names.

See also…

If using a Linux or Mac operating system, you can also set specific environment variables from within the Terminal. See the next recipe Configuring the AIR SDK to Package AIR for Android Applications on Linux or MacOS for an example of this.