Can no longer edit app descriptor file with 3.4 - really?

[BorisHansen]

Until now, when publishing to AIR from Flash Professional, I could manually edit the app descriptor XML with a little workaround:

1. Set up my publish settings in Flash Professional and click OK

2. Then edit the XML file and save it

3. Then Publish from Flash Professional WITHOUT opening the Publish Settings again (which would recreate the XML file).

This has been CRUCIAL to me in order to add certain elements to the XML file such as <extensions> I want to include with my project.

However, this seems impossible to do with the 3.4 AIR SDK release version. When I try, it ignores my manual edits of the XML file and simply removes them when I publish. This is a HUGE problem because now I can no longer add <extensions> in the app descriptor file (and this can't be done from the Flash Professional GUI).

Anyone have ANY idea how to keep adding my extensions to the app descriptor file?

[Guest]

Hi Boris,

I could reproduce the issue you have described and I guess that you have recently upgraded your CS 5.5 to CS 6.

In Flash Pro CS6, there is UI support for including native extensions in your project, and you no longer need to add <extensions> manually in your application descriptor.

Please refer to:

http://www.adobe.com/devnet/air/articles/using-ane-in-flash.html

for the usage information.

[Alesclandre]

Hello,

I have the same problem, but not the same solution : I have an old air application under Air 2.0, with an automatic updater, and wanted to make an intermediate application as seen here : http://helpx.adobe.com/air/kb/update-air-2-or-earlier.html .

So I have to change the application descriptor by hand. But Flash CS6 always overwrite this descriptor with its own datas while exporting.

How can I change my application descriptor for this intermediate version ? I have Flash CS5, but not Flash CS5.5, and the extension for Flash CS5 doesn't exist anymore !

Thanks !

[Alesclandre]

For those interested, I eventually found the extension here : http://www.bergfiles.com/i/bf5d8064d5hfi0

[stevenjamesdavies]

just had this same issue and realized if you save your changes to the file and then set the permission of the xml file to read only it will not be overwritten by flash, will mean changing it when anything else needs to be updated but seems to work fine for me now and I can finally show ads in my game again

best of luck and hope this helps someone else with this problem.

[User_Unknow]

1) update AIR to latest one

2) update Flash Pro. Starting from Flash CC it's not a prob

[stevenjamesdavies]

@anton azarov I did that, works great when I build for IOS but android seems to be a problem, I know it is an issue with the ane but I wasted several hours thinking it was my code but not knowing the correct user application requirements where not being added by the extension I was using, not saying it's the best approach but wanted to post the solution once I realized this simple solution to stop the auto update.

developers have to remember that the compiler is not always perfect and sometimes the code you write can be perfect and everything fails.

[Colin Holgate]

One Android specific option, perhaps because you may have to do so much editing of the app descriptor file for Android features, is that in Flash Pro you can choose to manually manage the descriptor file. That should solve most issues.

[stevenjamesdavies]

yeah it is in Flash pro and i have in the past managed to make manual updates to the descriptor but was so long ago I can't remember how to prevent the auto updating and everything I tried didn't work, lol, I was just pleased with myself that I noticed that a simple read only setting worked and had to share, none of my google searches seemed to offer the correct alternative and I thought maybe someone would have the same problem so I had to post what I did

[Colin Holgate]

Thanks for offering tips. For anyone wanting to manually manage their app descriptor, the Permissions tab of publishing settings has the check box to use.