Getting set up on a new machine - error: Found tag id where item is expected

[Devin-Licastro]

It's been years since I had to do a fresh install of Air and FlashDevelop etc.
My hard drive crashed yesterday, so I'm setting up fresh.

I got Airsdk manager, and the newest version, and have my project running via FlashDevelop, however if I try to package the app I run into errors like:

aapt tool failed:C:\Users\dlica\AppData\Local\Temp\46fff0b7-f2bf-4563-b88b-79794c667354\savedstate-1.2.1-res\values\values.xml:3: error: Found tag id where item is expected

C:\Users\dlica\AppData\Local\Temp\46fff0b7-f2bf-4563-b88b-79794c667354\lifecycle-viewmodel-2.6.1-res\values\values.xml:3: error: Found tag id where item is expected

C:\Users\dlica\AppData\Local\Temp\46fff0b7-f2bf-4563-b88b-79794c667354\lifecycle-runtime-2.6.1-res\values\values.xml:3: error: Found tag id where item is expected

C:\Users\dlica\AppData\Local\Temp\46fff0b7-f2bf-4563-b88b-79794c667354\activity-1.7.2-res\values\values.xml:4: error: Found tag id where item is expected

I feel like I am missing something fundamental, but not sure what. I tried Java (JDK) 17 and Java (JDK) 11 but that didn't seem to make a difference.

I seem to remember needing to install Android Studio back in the day, but I can't remember exactly if that is correct and what I would need from it.

Any tips, I'm not sure how to debug this as the temp files disappear before I can even see them.

Also it seems like FlashDevelop 64 bit no longer works, can't even open it, are most windows devs switching to Visual Studio to build air apps? Any tips there would help too.

[marchbold]

Yeah sounds like an old version of the Android SDK on your machine.

Just download Android Studio https://developer.android.com/studio and then open up the "SDK Manager" inside Android Studio. Check that you have version 14 (34) of the SDK installed and version 34.0.0 of the build tools.

Then set the same path in the AIR SDK Manager under "Configuration" / "Android Platform SDK" as the install location of the Android SDK (it's up the top of the SDK Manager screen).

[marchbold]

Most people seem to be using either IntelliJ or VS Code for dev these days with some still using Animate (though I do not recommend 😉 ) .

[Devin-Licastro]

Thanks a bunch @marchbold ! That solved it!

I'll give VS Code a try before too long also 😉

[marchbold]

Great to hear!

[FliplineStudios]

Also it seems like FlashDevelop 64 bit no longer works, can't even open it, are most windows devs switching to Visual Studio to build air apps? Any tips there would help too.

I'm still using FlashDevelop, and I've gotten it set up on new machines, though using an older 32-bit version -- I didn't know they ever released a 64-bit version! At some point I wouldn't mind switching to something else, but it still works decently for my workflow (especially with trying to keep up with lots of existing projects). I haven't really seen many details about what benefits there would be in switching to a different tool, though I do remember seeing that incremental compiling isn't available if you switch to IntelliJ (not sure about VS Code) so compiling can take longer.

[marchbold]

Personally I've been using IntelliJ for ages and it's constantly improving with the work Jetbrains are doing on the IDE and as I'm using it for android dev as well it is familiar for me. It is reaching the point where the AIR integration needs an update but it should be something that can be addressed.

VS Code though is very interesting as a solution and I've been experimenting with it. It's definitely worth considering and I'm looking to build support for templating VS Code AS projects with apm so likely that will be coming soon.

Honestly I can't imagine going back to FlashBuilder or FlashDevelop these days but I understand if its familiar.

[Devin-Licastro]

Hey Flipline,

As far as I understand, with FlashDevelop, you can only debug your project if you are using 32 bit Java, like Java 8, then for Air, we can only package an app using like 64bit Java 11 or Java 17? How do you handle this currently? Do you like change your environment variables each time you want to package, or do you know some cool trick?

As far as I remember, before my hard drive died, I could run the exe "C:\Program Files (x86)\FlashDevelop\FlashDevelop64.exe" and that 64 FlashDevelop could use newer Javas... but now this FlashDevelop64.exe cant run at all, hits 15 errors on load.

(but I might be misremembering, setup was a long time ago, somehow I didn't have to switch Java versions before my crash though)

[FliplineStudios]

@Devin-Licastro I think I've lucked into not having issues because my packaging workflow is a bit roundabout, where I use FlashDevelop (and its own AIR+Flex SDK) to compile the SWF as the first step, and then run a bat script later that uses a separate copy of the (most up-to-date) AIR SDK with adt doing the final packaging from the command line, so each can point to their own Java version. So FlashDevelop specifically points to Java 1.6 in its jvm.config, and then I have an environment variable for Java 17 that everything else will use instead.

It's a pretty clunky process (from back in the "Packager for iPhone" days!), but at least it lets FlashDevelop compile with its own version of the SDK with its own Java config. I'd imagine it'd be jumping through a lot more hoops if I wanted FlashDevelop to do the packaging part too though...

[Devin-Licastro]

Oh right on, sounds like I could use jvm.config too, where is yours located? I searched my entire C:\Program Files (x86)\FlashDevelop folder but don't see the file

[FliplineStudios]

It should be in the AppData for wherever the Flex/AIR SDK is that you're using, for me it's in:
C:\Users\username\AppData\Local\FlashDevelop\Apps\flexairsdk\yourversion\bin

Inside of that config file I have java.home pointing to my Java 1.6 folder