Firebase in ActionScript

Firebase is a back end platform that offers several services to aid in the development of apps and games, specially the ones that rely on server side infrastructure.

Some of its services can be accessed by using a RESTful approach. This repository contains detailed guides and examples explaining how to use those services in your Adobe AIR projects.

You won't need an ANE for these guides, all of them work only using StageWebView, URLRequest and URLLoader.

Firebase Auth

Main guide: Firebase Auth

This service allows you to securely authenticate users into your app. It uses Google Identity Toolkit to provide this service. Some of its key features are:

• Leverages the use of OAuth, saving time and effort.
• Authenticate with Facebook, Google, Twitter, Email, Anonymous and more.
• Generates an authToken that can be used for secure operations against Firebase Storage and Firebase Database.

Firebase Database

Main guide: Firebase Database

This service allows you to save and retrieve text based data. Some of its key features are:

• Securely save and retrieve data using rules and Firebase Auth.
• Listen to changes in realtime, useful for chat based apps.
• Data is generated in JSON, making it lightweight and fast to load.
• Easy to model and understand data structures.
• Filter, organize and query the data.

Firebase Storage

Main guide: Firebase Storage

This service allows you to upload and maintain all kinds of files, including images, sounds, videos and binaries. It uses Google Cloud Storage to provide this service. Some of its key features are:

• Securely save, retrieve and delete files using rules and Firebase Auth.
• Load end edit metadata from files.

Getting Started

This guide assumes you want to use the 3 services in the same application, you will be able to use them with a free account.

Before you start coding you need to follow these steps to prepare your application for Firebase:

1. Create or open a project in the Firebase Console
2. You will be presented with 3 options for adding your app to iOS, Android or Web.
3. Click Web, a popup will appear with information about your project. Copy down your apiKey and authDomain.

From the authDomain we only need the id of the project, an example of an id is: my-app-12345.

You can read the guides in any order but it is recommended to start with the Firebase Auth guide.

FAQs

What is the difference between these guides and existing Firebase ANEs?

Firebase ANEs are based on the Android and iOS official SDKs, providing all of their native features.

These guides are based on the JavaScript SDK, which provides the same functionality from the Web browser but inside the AIR runtime.

Which are the benefits of using these guides?

These guides work on Android, iOS, Windows and OSX using only the ActionScript 3 standard library, this will greatly reduce time when reusing your implementation code for all 4 platforms.

You won't need to embed several ANEs to your project, this is very important for developers who are concerned with the app size.

They are also a great way to understand how Firebase works behind the scenes.

Free and open source!

Why only Database, Auth and Storage, what about the other Firebase features?

These guides are based on the JavaScript SDK and therefore have their same limitation of being web based only. If you need the rest of features that Firebase offers I strongly recommend using an ANE.

How did you got the documentation for Auth and Storage?

I studied the JavaScript SDK and its official documentation, then I determined the API paths, requests, results and errors.

What about Flash Player projects?

For Flash Player projects I recommend using the ExternalInterface class with the official JavaScript SDK.

Donations

Feel free to support the development of free guides and examples. Your donations are greatly appreciated.