Porting of Macromedia ® Flash SDK to Windows CE based devices
The Macromedia Flash SDK has been ported to the Windows CE based OEM devices to support Standalone and ActiveX Flash player versions.
Company
The client is a leading provider of embedded devices . The devices will be running Windows CE based operating system hosting the Macromedia Flash Player.
Challenge
The WinCE applications do not always have all the features and there will be some amount of effort involved in building and customizing the features. While porting, UI events should be customized and handled in the ported application.
Macromedia provides, Flash Player SDK, to port and deploy standalone & ActiveX Flash Player, on to embedded devices. Since the device was in Beta stage, the implementation should be finished within 2 weeks to make the device to be further used by the client for their testing of the system.
Solutions
The Client under these conditions invited Calsoft Labs to provide the solution. Our engineering team had only 2 weeks to come up with the first version of standalone and ActiveX SDKs.
A team consisting of an architect, a CE expert and a tester started the work in December 2005. Initially, the team studied the system environment, to see the limitations and features. After that, the team ported the system independent modules to the device. This was followed by the system dependent modules. The team then built a CAB based setup file, for easy installation, of the ActiveX control as well as standalone player.
Finally, the team worked on testing and validating the port. Standard test suites mandated by Macromedia were successfully run on the applications on the device.
The ActiveX controls also were tested using the pocket version of Internet Explorer supported by the device.
Result
With the Calsoft Labs team taking up the porting work, the client was able to demonstrate Macromedia Flash player in the device within two weeks. The product found good customer acceptance.
Benefits
Calsoft Labs's expertise in embedded applications and Win CE development offers many advantages to equipment vendors
- Having dynamic content and rich entertainment in the device.
- Ability to meet time-to-market requirements.
- Lower cost of development.
- Guaranteed support.