Android AdMob AIR Native Extension crashes when adding AdView to LinearLayout

Issue

I'm creating an AIR native extension to integrate AdMob.

I've followed the guidelines for using external resources described here: http://www.adobe.com/devnet/air/articles/ane-android-devices.html

and packaged google's adMob jar in my native extension jar as described here: AIR 3 Native Extensions for Android - Can I/How to include 3rd party libraries?

I have a NewAdFunction class which implements FREFunction and is called by the actionscript side. The NewAdFunction.call() function contains essentially the following: (in my actual code I have the necessary try catches)

Intent intent = new Intent(context.getActivity(), AdMobActivity.class);
layoutID = context.getResourceId("layout.adlayout");
intent.putExtra("layoutID", layoutID);
context.getActivity().startActivity(intent);

In the above code adlayout is an xml located in res/layout. I package the entire res folder in my final jar and include the following code in my test AIR project's xml.

<application android:enabled="true" android:debuggable="true">
            <activity android:name="com.mycompany.admob.AdMobActivity"></activity>
</application>

In the following code everything works up until it reaches layout.addView(adView); At this point the program crashes but nothing is printed through the console.

public class AdMobActivity extends Activity {

    @Override
    public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
        super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
        int layoutID = getIntent().getIntExtra("layoutID", -1);
        setContentView(layoutID);
        LinearLayout layout = (LinearLayout)findViewById(layoutID);
        AdView adView = new AdView(this, AdSize.BANNER, MY_DEVELOPER_ID);
        layout.addView(adView);
    }
}

All I could think of is that layout could be null, but I added a trace function and it isn't null.

Solution

I discovered that actually the layout variable was indeed null. Instead of creating a layout with an xml, I ended up instead creating it programmatically like so:

public FREObject call(FREContext context, FREObject[] args) {
    AdView adView = new AdView(context.getActivity(), AdSize.BANNER, NewAdFunction.developerId);
    Activity activity = context.getActivity();

    ViewGroup viewGroup = (ViewGroup)activity.findViewById(android.R.id.content);
    viewGroup = (ViewGroup)viewGroup.getChildAt(0);
    LinearLayout layout = new LinearLayout(activity);
    viewGroup.addView(layout, new FrameLayout.LayoutParams(LayoutParams.MATCH_PARENT, LayoutParams.MATCH_PARENT));
    LinearLayout.LayoutParams params = new LinearLayout.LayoutParams(LayoutParams.MATCH_PARENT, LayoutParams.MATCH_PARENT);

    adView.setVisibility(View.VISIBLE);
    layout.addView(adView, params);
}

That's the best way I've found to add a view in an AIR native extension.

Answered By - Justin Livi