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Flash Applications That Can Be Used Online and Off
General Voltron writes "Macromedia, Inc., the same people that brought you Flash, have done it again with a new product called Central. Central will allow users to more easily interact with information on the internet by also allowing them to interact with it offline. It will also allow developers to create and sell their own applications. See the press release." I'm not a big fan of Flash myself, but I realize it has its niche. This looks like something that Flash authors have been clamoring for.
Dammit, Macro! I told you to use the litterbox next time!
Cant you already view .swf offline??
Or does anyone else think Flash should die a quick and painful death? I have never seen Flash used in an application that wouldn't be more effective using javascript or simple HTML.
Have you been stalked by Seth today?
The entertainment industry likes their sites, for the lack of a better word, "flashy." Flash enables graphic designers and non developer types to create sites that look good and contain little code.
You can also create some decent little games with flash, which is hard to do using JScript and HTML.
If you ever want an application that is web based that truly looks the same on all resolutions and systems, look to Flash.
Flash is excellent when it's implemented well. Or it's a freaking nightmare when it's implemented poorly. Guess you've never used an excellent implementation.
That's some pretty impressive stuff, you have to admit. I couldn't see this getting done very well with DHTML. Animation work, especially interactive anaimation, is the definate niche for Flash. It can be developed so cheaply and so quickly, loaded in any browser with a free plugin, and effortlessly distributed to billions via the internet. Perfect format.
Homestar Runner.
Do not read this sig.
I downloaded this .swf file of an interesting Flash animation showing the huge variation in Britney Spears breast size over time, and for some reason it doesn't work offline. Looks like Macromedia engineered some restrictions to be able to sell another product.
From the white paper:
Sweet! Now I can try to punch that damn monkey when I'm offline too! Maybe next they can just send people to my house to sell me things while I'm looking for pr0... I mean researching for my paper.
I know I have seen the term "authors" used before when talking about people that create Flash aps. Can someone educate me here? Is there a reason why these people aren't considered developers? Is it not a programming environment? I don't know anything about "authoring" with Flash so it would be interesting to hear.
But today, Flash ships with just about every browser and there is far more dynamic web content in Flash than in Java. Why? Because Macromedia didn't unnecessarily taunt Microsoft ("we are going to make Windows irrelevant"), because they worked hard to get Flash shipped with everything, and because they focused on authoring tools. And, strangely enough, Macromedia graphics works on Linux, while Sun keeps complaining and changing their implementation.
Sun, in contrast, did everything they could to get into Microsoft's cross-hairs, they didn't fix their bugs, they kept changing their strategies, and they never produced decent authoring tools. Now, Java is mostly a server-side technology. But that's not a particularly secure niche, since Java-style sandboxing is needed much less on the server than for downloadable applications, and because there are lots of alternatives on the server.
I don't think Macromedia will be successful at turning Flash into an application platform. But they sure are trying, and they are a lot more successful with worse technology than Sun with Java.
Does anyone else see flash as possibly a competetor to Java? I mean it started as an vector-animation tool, and now it's already got scripting, database support, and now offline capabilities..
I wonder where MM decides to go with this..
This looks like Macromedia's version of Sherlock (or Watson).
mbbac
Ok, so I understand that this technology is more then just offline flash, but still- flash is capable of being executed offline.
.swf file will be the one you want. In some cases it will be obvious which .swf you want (Strong bad email = sbemail##.swf), but in other cases, you can just clear you cache before you load the page. Then it will be the only one in the directory.
.swf file once I get it, but once I tell it to load with browser-of-choice it works fine. Trogdor is now a perminate resident of my computer.
The problem is usually in getting the flash files. If you know their names already, it's easy. If not, it's still not hard. Load up the file from the internet, then check your cache. The
My computer doesn't know what to do with a
"Probably the toughest time in anyone's life is when you have to murder a loved one because they're the devil." -Philips
I'm not sure if anyone said this or not, but flash will work when used offline. I download flash movies all the time and have no problem using them. I have to say, I don't quite get it...
I am a viral sig. Please help me spread.
My coworker (a Flash developer) said it best - "All it is is just Watson." This seems like a way to build small, single purpose apps that do small, single purpose things. Too bad they can't be chained together with | and > like Unix's small, single purpose apps.
Why can't I moderate something "Wrong" or at least "Grossly Misinformed"?
http://www.mult.ru -- it helps if you can speak (and read) Russian, but it's utterly hilarious even if you don't.
SWAMPFLY
Slashdot Eds Link Anonymous Posts With Logged Posts
They Are Vermin Feeding On Each Other's Feces.
I Hate \.
Oh I forgot to mention, once you have the .swf file on your computer, you have more control over it. You can resize it, use the playback commands, change the quality, and whatever else flash normally allows of you. It's a lot better then the reduced command set you have on some sites. Full screen trogdor is even better =).
"Probably the toughest time in anyone's life is when you have to murder a loved one because they're the devil." -Philips
It's unfortunate that macromedia takes such crap from people for flash. I don't see people attacking Visual Studio for the existence of spyware, trojans and buggy applications.
The gripes with flash are completely the fault of the developers. Flash is an intelligent application with great potential for online games, audio and video, interactive forms, etc. If web developers decide to use its power in idiotic ways, blame the web site not Macromedia.
This new technology from Macromedia will make it easy for my band to make a little app that plays music and shows band pics, and I don't need a CS degree to build it. And it will work on a Mac, Windows and maybe even Linux. I can't see anything worng with this.
Macromedia deserves some credit for staying in tune with the development world. But lets face it: Flash is for art majors. Even with its "standard" controls that are now available (e.g., scrolling text box), it is still a difficult environment to control; you always feel like "this could look so much better with this spinning, pulsing button." All those vector calculations in Flash still bring a PII to its knees. If people are interested in Web applications, they migh consider Runtime Revolution, a cheap ($300) cross-platform (Mac, Win, Linux, etc.) alternative with native support for sockets and other amazing tools, including multimedia support, that really allow you to accomplish what needs to be done. I've spent a LOT of time trying to find the right rapid application developement tools for the job, and Runtime Revolution has yet to be beat. Python with Boa Constructor (v .2) and Mcmillan installers is certainly awesome, but the multimedia (i.e., Quicktime) just isn't there yet. In other words, there are a lot of very nice alternatives to Flash, which is really not much more than a glorified banner advertisement tool.
The Death Penalty: Killing people to show others that killing people is wrong.
...are Animutations. ;-)
Other than annoying website navigation, some web games, and short movie clips, what's Flash used for? I don't think I'm the only one wondering what someone would use this for.
In the long run, we're all dead.
It seems the flash client has slowly evolved in the way that Java Applets have, except that the installed userbase is signifigantly more substantial. This product seems analogous to Java WebStart. If somehow Flash could understand Java (or at least a proper language), instead of actionscript (shudder) they'd be well on their way to web domination. /(could be) better for almost everything Flash does.
<sigh> I wish Sun's marketing & product positioning team was as good as Macromedia's since I still believe Java is
...are doomed to reinvent it; poorly.
No developer with their right mind will use flash to develop applications today. This tool is for Movie makers :), not programmer. This is what Jeremy Allaire had to say about flash:
Programming Model. Today, building Flash applications requires a hybrid left-brain/right-brain skill-set. That's reflected in the nomenclature and workflow of the Flash IDE, which uses concepts like Movies, MovieClips, Timelines, Symbols, Layers, etc. in addition to classic software programming concepts like Components, Objects, XML, ECMAScript, and Web Services. Macromedia understands the diversity of developer types, including pure ISV-style application developers, and will surely deliver the right range of products to better optimize development workflow.
It's hands-down the best way of doing animation on the internet. (Comparatively) good scripting language, vector graphics, good client support, etc. Even Tim Burton uses it for his animations.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
I really don't get it. This could be done with Flash allready. What's the big deal? That they add a Proxy layer that emulates a living conection for Flash?
A minimum of commom sense whilst building a Flashapp will circle that problem.
It's nothing but marketing hype, if you ask me.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
Looks like a Super Konfabulator to me..... THis could be pretty cool. But not anything anyone really needs. Personally i like native os widgets in my apps, not 2 tone vector ones..
I constantly see a need for B-to-B and intranet HTTP-friendly remote GUI systems. DOM+JavaScript sucks for that because it is optimized for e-brochures, not e-forms. Although there are draft standards floating around (XWT, SCGUI {my pet}), there has yet to be a relatively big company to back such. (XUL is also supposed to do such, but I am not impressed with it so far.)
Table-ized A.I.
I think Strong Bad and company over at www.homestarrunner.com would disagree with you. Yeah, flash gets abused horribly but in the hands of creative people some great stuff can be done with it.
It's not so much that Flash competes with Java as it does compliment Java (and .NET). The solutions currently being explored is to have Flash and HTML on the front end with Java on the server back end. I think this combo could be really powerful and takes advantage of the strengths of each platform.
In fact, Macromedia did a Flash + Java "Petstore" application to show off this exact solution. See:
J2EETM: Behind the Pet Market From Macromedia
Macromedia Pet Market Blueprint Application
Macromedia JavaTM Application Development Center
Also it's interesting to note that Macromedia produces it's own J2EE application server, JRun. The latest version is actually rather nice and very well priced. So I think Macromedia has no problems supporting both Flash and Java.
Who said Freedom was Fair?
Finally there're tools out there that will allow developers to write and sell their own applications!
It's revolutionary!
...but it's being eaten...by some...Linux or something...
Either today had too many trolls and some of you are too damn ignorant. Flash is just another tool for both web and desktop development.
.
a mples.macromedia.com/petmarket/flashstor e.htmle screen/o nescreenmx.cfme r5.htmla rison/ind ex.html
The Flash 6 player runs on Mac, PC, Linux (RH plugin), PocketPC, Solaris and a few others. The plugin is on more browsers than any other plugin out there.
Can Flash be used to create crap? heck yeah.. any tool can be annoying to a user...Its the developer that determines that.
For those of you complaining about Flash pop-up ads, do you think that pop-ups appeared after Flash? No.. advertisers have been annoying us since the days of
Here are some very good examples of what Flash can be:
http://reservations.broadmoor.com
http://ex
http://reservations.ihotelier.com/sshr/on
http://www.smallblueprinter.com/v
http://www.powershot.com/powershot2/comp
Macromedia Central is going to provide a way for Flash developers to get exposure, sell their products, and make some really cool desktop applications that extend beyond what can be done now by creating a standalone projector.
- John
Wow, you're pretty fucking cool. Since 1992? Wow. Bet you have the brand of you car stereo stenciled on your windshield, too. And probably one of those t-shirts saying "world's greatest cocksucker" or something.
Ok, details on this app are a bit scarce right now. From reading over the white paper quickly it looks like Macromedia has created an OS app that does a few key things - someone please correct me if my impression is wrong.
.swf file from somebody else? Worse, what if they decompile the code (Flash actionscript is interpreted, remember)? Macromedia has created a centralized app that handles this messy part for the Flash developers.
1) Manages caching of online data for its Flash apps in XML format so the apps themselves don't need to worry about it. I should say that this is really just a guess. At the least I'm sure that Central provides a way for the Flash apps to manage the caching themselves.
2) Creates a centralized "internet center" that tries to do the same kinds of things that all those Windows media player have tried to do for so long: create a single application that buys your groceries, checks stocks, etc. Is it me or is this some kind of holy grail of application dominance? I mean, hence the name "Central" after all.
3) Gives developers an easy channel for selling their Flash applications, and exposes a Flash Actionscript API for letting them decide how much to charge for their service.
Ok, so here's my quick-n-dirty analysis of it.
First of all, Flash apps always had the capability of being played offline. Technically, that's all that a Flash movie is - it's a file that's executed and drawn by the client using the installed Flash Player. What's different here is that Macromedia is pushing (quite hard) for Flash apps to become web applications. They've already created an entire framework for doing the Flash equivalent of remote-procedure calls on web services (I'm simplifying here a bit), which of course would require being online. What I believe the Central app does is point 1) above: it abstracts the difference between being online and offline, making it easier for developers to create Flash web applications, which is where Macromedia is pushing Flash these days (via XML, mostly).
The other important thing to note is point 3) above. If you were a Flash developer and had, say, created an web services-aware Flash application that checked stock prices, it's not very easy for you to sell it yourself. You have to have all the backend framework in place to handle who's connecting, who's paid, who hasn't paid, etc. And all of that is complex and has nothing to do with Flash (pick your favorite server-side scripting and DB). Plus, you have the problem of advertising and distribution - who's going to find out about your little Flash app? And how are they going to get it? And then pay for it? What if they just copy the
Almost makes me wish I was a full-time professional Flash developer. Actually, it doesn't at all. Coding in Flash is an exercise in futility and hacks. I'll stick to being a hobbyist Flash game developer, thank-you-very-much.
Experts agree: everything is fine.
A very cool, very useful .application for visualizing one financial market. Make sure you choose the broadband option
[irony]Do you think Bill Gates is annoyed that the story on pages 10 & 11 of the whitepaper (PDF) refers to "Lisa" using a laptop instead of a Tablet?[/irony]
Most flash-enabled sites are annoying, in my opinion. Since I use Mozilla as my main browser, I have flash disabled. If I really want to see something with Flash, I use IE.
Anyway, one of the concerns I have with Flash is that we are dependant on one company to make the development kits and clients. There's no choice to view flash with a different plug in. There's no opensource equivalent that can be ported to the next up and coming hardware or software platform.
Maybe you don't think that is bad. What will you think when Microsoft buys Macromedia?
I metamoderate, therefore I am
- I feel flash has a use but a small use. Probably an over use in 90% of situations
- need an open/standard for vector images. Because flash is too big. How can I reuse and resize an image within a website??!
A blog I run for the wealth
I remember when Flash was released. I thought, wow, this is like Director, only it doesn't do as much. Why didn't they incorporate the features of flash ito director? Now it seems like Macromedia is reverse engineering to incorporate the features of Director into flash? Does this seem ass backwards to anyone else?
Last time I checked, using Macromedia software required you to agree to be audited, with a 30 day notice (probably by the BSA). If Flash is your only software that subjects you, and your Flash-downloading users, to a compliance inventory, you may want to consider other options with less invasive licenses. Flash is a nifty tool, until some door-knocker flashes his BSA badge.
I like Macromedia products and they released a new one today called Central.
r lock.html . It was perfected by Watson http://www.karelia.com/watson/ .
http://www.macromedia.com/software/central/
The problem is, their "new" application was released by Apple 3 years ago. It's called Sherlock.
http://www.apple.com/macosx/jaguar/she
Expect a hard to use Microsoft knockoff of this technology in about 6-8 months.
Where in the fuck is my Mozilla 1.3 compatible flash? Where is Shockwave for Linux?
I wouldn't support these clowns.
Breakout forever
my sig
on what exactly this product does...
From the screen shot on the Central page it looks like a Macromedia version of Sun's Java Webstart - only instead of loading Java apps it loads Flash apps.
I guess I will just have to try their demo when it come sout to really know why or if I would want to use this.
Ave Molech Setting
But when I see something like this...I see the good that can be done with this amazing tool.
Isn't this like what Marimba Castanet tried for Java?
It was a way to synchronize Java applications so that they could be used offline, and automatically updated whenever the user went back online. The idea was to have "channels" of available Java programs on a user's machine that could be accessed at any time and updated/synchronized with a central server periodically. It was intended for use by traveling salesmen and others with intermittent Internet connections.
It was a fun novelty at first, but overall it didn't go over so well. Marimba's web page is still up today, evidently the company has diversified into some overall "change management" strategy.
Macromedia Central strikes me as exactly the same thing, but for Flash instead of Java!
Dr. Demento On The 'Net!
This has already been done properly in java ...try a demo at altio...or nexaweb...or curl...or droplets...or fourbit.
nice one macro, but do we need this????
"You never want a serious crisis to go to waste." - Rahm Emanuel
Isn't this really more geared towards a PDA market?
I mean to say there is already a nice service to synching online data for offline use (e.g. AvantGo)
Other than using a service like this for PDA's, what other "offline" benefits would this add? I'm on a broadband connection, so generally this isn't a problem (when the network is up) for me....
The original poster's point was that this is exactly the thing that client-side Java applets were delivering several years ago, before the big MS/Netscape breakdown.
Its this same ability, in its more robust form, that scared MS so much as to prompt its actions against MS/Sun. (along with Scott McNealy's taunting, of course. Shame on him to believe that he could hide behind the protection of the law...)
As a side note, how fully-featured is Flash? Can I do encryption? Query databases? Communicate to remote objects? Manipulate large datasets? Is it OO? I'm not insinuating that the answers to these are false, I'm asking because I don't know.
-Zipwow
I don't know which is more depressing, that 2/3 didn't care enough to vote, or that 1/2 of those that did are crazy.
Is this an advertisement?
Drew a series of kanji characters, shape-tweened animations between them, added music, fadein/fadeout text, etc. Took about 3 hours total, most of which was deciding on what to say and getting decent drawings. (I've got my tablet on order: it's a bitch doing pen art with a mouse.)
If you could do something similar in Javascript or (D)HTML in less than a week I will eat the CD I burned it to.
"Seven Deadly Sins? I thought it was a to-do list!"
This looks like the Flash equivalent of SashXB for linux: http://www-124.ibm.com/developerworks/oss/sashxb/l ibrary/tour/
there's also a windows version called SashWin or something. Very niche environment; but it's probably great for those flash developers trying to branch out into nonweb-based applications.
put the what in the where?
Maybe a stupid question but I'm only half as ubergeek as some of you- if there were applications to run flash across platforms, wouldn't it become somewhat of a universal language like Java, with only the virtual machine changing on other systems? What prevents flash applications from being used for productive things, instead of always being a bunch of vector cartoons?
A big advantage would be that presentations could easily be moved to the Web. They'd be far smaller, too. (Why are PowerPoint files so bulky, anyway?) This could be a great tool for educators if someone wrote an open-source authoring tool for presentations.
The Flash delivery format is open; there's even a Perl CPAN library for writing it. Only Macromedia's authoring format is proprietary. You don't have to use that.
This is One Of Those Things Linux Needs To Be Competitive On The Corporate Desktop.
macromedia launched the communication server, ideal for video conf and voice chat and lots of nice stuff, ever encountered someone that uses it? as for central, FLASH is being used offline, its a fact, i use it to make cds cause its more powerful then director and i can populate it with XML data, its really powerful, for online, i use it instead of java we all know why by why launch a new product? IMHO flash MX is being used this way for a while now, this is lots of marketing and little innovation.
who wants to rule the world?
My original solution to flash ads was to uninstall the flash plugin, but this meant that I couldn't view stuff like The Carabella Game: The Quest for Tunes. Then I found out that Mozilla and Phoenix can make use of plugins that are installed while the browser is running. This meant that I could load and unload the flash plugin without restarting my browser. I cooked up the following script, which was originally nicely indented:
Here's how it works: Mozilla is installed in /opt/mozilla, and Phoenix is installed in /opt/phoenix. I have a directory called /opt/plugins where I keep my plugins so they aren't lost when I install a new nightly build. When I turn Flash on, the script makes a symlink to the Flash files inside the browser's plugins directory, and when I turn Flash off, the script deletes the symlinks.
To make this even simpler, I added the following entries to my window manager (IceWM). This way I can enable or disable flash with the click of my mouse.
Flash has been known for its security vulnerabilities, such as this one:
Security hole in Macromedia Flash allows attack through any browser.
By editing the Flash header (SWF), it is possible to run any code on the computer of a visitor to a web page, according to an eEye Digital Security Alert. The vulnerability exists in all versions of Flash and in all browsers that support Flash, making it "... trivial to bypass firewalls and attack the user at his desktop." eEye says they found 17 other vulnerabilities in Flash. eEye reported a previous vulnerability last May.
I've always disliked how Flash tends to be an advertisement for Flash. Visitors to a page with Flash often get upgrade notices.
When I read the above security risk announcement, I disabled Flash in Mozilla, and now I often get the Macromedia advertisement: "Click here to get the plugin." Did the owners of those web sites intend to force me to install unsafe software or go elsewhere? No, probably they just trusted a web site builder who knew that flashy graphics is cheaper than useful content.
One of my favourite web games uses Flash and Javascript ... Bij-voorbeeld Maj-Jong.
YS
"Arrr! The laws of science be a harsh mistress." -- Bender
Basically they're making an app that manages client applets. Earth shattering. When you connect, Macromedia Central knows it and tells your local clients as well as their servers that you're connected and they can receive/send info back & forth. In their perfect world thousands of developers would build flash apps that behave and deliever content to the user and send information from the user back to the company--all the while providing both sides with exactly what they want. Kinda cool I guess. But let's move on over to the real world--developers and the companies they work for will not always behave--they'll take as much info as they can get, push as much out as possible probably with little regard for privacy, security or perhaps most important, the actual usefulness of the data they're sending to the end user.
They're pushing for the applets to use XML so they can share data (which is certainly good and bad). I see value in some of the ideas, but would rather the individual companies/services/developers build such applets on their own. This way I can decide whether I agree with their privacy & security policies as well as whether it's actually worth it to me or not. Though to counter this, I guess the Macromedia framework is supposed to allow you try out the applets and they're run in protected mode so they can't access your HDD. Which leads me to the next question, where is the data stored? Must be on a server if the applets can share it but don't have the rights to view your HDD. So whose server? How do different vendors share data across different domains without being wide open to security problems?
And perhaps the biggest concern of all might be that this is just the next evolution for spam. Once you connect you'll be downloading tons of "content" probably determined in part by the "content provider." Now replace the word content with spam.
Anyway, that's my take.
Vote Quimby.
You misunderstand me.
--sdem
As far as I know, this is already possible with Flash. Any Flash object on the web is downloaded to your web browser's cache. Once there, it can be run online or offline, it doesn't matter.
In phoenix (possibly Mozilla) with the Tab Browser extensions by right clicking on the title bar of a tab you get a context menu. Under "Permissions" in that menu you can then disable plugins for that particular tab.
Hope this helps.
--- I do not moderate.
This could finally be an alternative to all those GUI applications built using Java/Microsoft technology. Not only that, macromedia is trying to develop something that could easily be ported to PDA's also
:
Quote
"Macromedia Central provides this ideal environment for rich,
customized, occasionally-connected applications. It runs on both
desktops and Macromedia Flash Player enabled **MOBILE DEVICES** using
the technology of the Macromedia Flash Player 6. Therefore, millions of
users with the Macromedia Flash Player are ready to use Macromedia
Central."
(Jonathan Duran, Technical Editor Macromedia -- What is Macromedia
Central)
Siggy Say, Siggy Do
Not exactly what you are looking for, but ...
Export your PPT to a series of WMFs, autonamed with names like slide1.wmf, slide2.wmf, etc.
Then import the first one into Flash. Flash asks if you want to import the whole series. You say yes. Each one loads as a Frame.
From there, it's trivial to make a navigation layer, put stop() actions on each frame, etc. Voila! A PPT authored presentation, but in Flash. Smaller, and you can insert more complex animations in choice spots.
It's called flash player and it's been out since the name changed to flash (was it 2.0). With Flash Player you can play flash stuff online or offline. You can even save information locally (up to a user specified limit). I wrote a flash browser back in 2000 (when flash became really unpopular on slashdot for some reason). It was simple put in a url to a swf and it loaded and scaled to full screen. It even had a progress bar, history (not persistant since this was flash 5 and couldn't really do much for file storage without the help of cookies- bleh) and the works pretty much except no css or javascript.
So I just published that to a self contained flash Player and called it Edscape Navigator after my dog. because realostically it was a total piece of crap for brains.
Course there was never a Linux version, it only ran in MacOS8-9 and Windows. Otherwise I'd probably be a billionaire by now.
Actuslly I'd only expect to see more file handling ability- and really isn't this what director is for; after all it even loads flash natively.
Who is this "Poster" guy and why does he own all of my comments?!?
and now you can do it offline too? That's sick.
"It's not your information. It's information about you" - John Ford, Vice President, Equifax
Is a dead Flash site!
I seem to remember an application that can already do something like this....oh yeah, its called flash.
Have you ever coded in Flash? Actionscript (or whatever thay call it now) is one of the most high level languages on the plane. Go check out praystation. The guy does some pretty amazing stuff in tens of lines of code.
Try programming something in Java that is easy to do in flash. You'll end up with roughly the number of lines in the flash program cubed. That's not to say that verbosity is an indicator of difficulty, it's just the way the languages are designed. Flash is made to do a lot with a little, using vector images and high level scripting.
Crystal Meth: Would you ingest somthing made from a poisonous gas and an explosive metal? You do it every day -- Salt!
I'm sorry to say this, but when I looked at macromedia.com lately and was presented their rewamped website it occured to me that they have used a tremendous amount of resources reinventing the wheel. What's the facking point of remaking plain vanilla GUI controls in a Flash-applet?
If I've missed something bleeding obvious here, please enlighten me, 'cause I !really! don't see the point.
naah sig schmig
This is hardly big or new news. That capability has existed within Director (now on Mac OS X) since 1996. I know this as a fact since I was one of the people who put it in (well, tested it really).
Not wishing to get into a flame session of Director vs Flash but our company has built an entire product line off this capabilty.
If there's any product that deserves a another look, it's Director. It's one really powerful tool that doesn't get the press it deserves.
If you would like to see visually impressive stuff done in director, check out http://www.setpixel.com.
Cheers,
- Zav - Imagine a Beowulf cluster of insensitive clods...
subject line troll
dume dee dad daddd.. dum dee da.. mwehehhe..
aarrghh..
Looks like the end for these people then. They've been doing this with flash for years.
I'm referring to all you Flash "developers" that can't get a grasp on Director. Director / Shockwave has all the abilities of Flash, plus a ton more. It could easily do what this new program does.
So sad to see Macromedia pandering even more to idiots that already fill the web with their poor use of Flash.
There are some cool things that you could do with flash that you can't do in stateless http, and the app they're promoting here extends that functionality. case in point: a flash client can maintain a socket connection to a server. because the server knows who is connected, (it has a collection of connected clients) it can push data to each connected client. the web client no longer has to query the server for new information every five minutes.
this service would extend that functionality, making the client more independent of the browser, the server and the persistent connection.
I was hoping there were some good open-source and/or free tools out to author Flash movies. Well there's nothing even close to Flash MX, but here are the results of my search:
FlashWriter Toolkit
- PHP module
phpChart class package
- PHP class
Ming
- PHP module + libraries for several languages
- SWF output library and PHP module
SSWF
- WORKS, looks cool
- non-interactive (you make a script file)
AMF PHP
- An Open-Source Alternative for Flash Remoting
- Cool stuff: dynamic remote database access
- WORKS, but still in ALPHA
FreeMovie
- PHP & Ruby classes
Flounce
- Qt/KDE application to produce Flash SWF files
- PRE-ALPHA
SWF-Authoring
- alpha
- non-interactive (you make a script file)
Flame
- Linux clone of Macromedia apps
- No files released yet, still organizing
Lounge
- Flash animator that uses libXML, Ming, and GTK
- No files released yet
FlashBuilder
- "Free", apparently ad-ware?
- Windows only?
"It's Dot Com!"
it's called Mozilla. Multi-platform client install. Web services api's. Cool UI widgets. SVG. Local caching.....
www.mozdev.org
Both of these bugs were fixed the same day that eEye told Macromedia about them. That's very different than saying they were fixed the same day anyone found them.
One of my computers was compromised by an attack on a Macromedia vulnerability, long before Macromedia was told the fault existed.
Macromedia is not "dedicated to building secure products", or maybe they are and are not effective at it. Macromedia may be dedicated to fixing bugs when they are told about them.
After Macromedia fixed the bugs, there were still millions of computers that still had the old software and the old vulnerabilities.
Before I can stencil anything on my windshield I would first have to buy a car. That's how much I care about materialistic macho nonsense like the stuff you mention: not in the least!
I started using that sig because at that time I would frequently end up being attacked for not being Linux-friendly enough while speaking up on Slashdot. What matters to me are facts and logic. Even if they don't match the popular view.
Oh, and the sig is actually true. Kernel version 0.12 on a 386 box.
Having said all that, let me just add this: Wow, you're pretty fucking cool, attacking people for their sigs. I guess you have a T-shirts that says "world's most useful Slashdot contributor".
http://www.macromedia.com/software/player_census/f lashplayer/version_penetration.html
71% have the latest Flash 6 player.
93% have Flash 5 installed.
Outside of pure html, you couldn't ask for a better environment to develop for. Nothing else comes close to those penetration numbers except for basic html.
Plus Flash content can run on Mac, PC, Linux, Solaris, PocketPC, Sony PDA, and even some phones.
what good is karma, but to save it up for a time like this!
Yes, yes, yes.
Just look at the movie icons for Central and Sherlock.
Where are Apple's Cease and Desist letters when you need them?
Yeah, man that was so stupid of Sun for getting angry at Microsoft for breaking their contract. How immature.
And, strangely enough, Macromedia graphics works on Linux, while Sun keeps complaining and changing their implementation.
So you think Flash works better in Linux than Java does? Am I missing something? And what complaining from Sun are you talking about? Inform me.
You know where you are? You're in the $PATH, baby. You're gonna get executed!
I don't know if anyone read the section on Lisa, the over-achieving and highly productive MOTHER of two...
Come on, how long is she really gonna last living like that? Is that living?
Techology is a good thing when used right. It is not a good thing when it is used for stupid things like ordering ingredients for a suggested meal "mushroom soup". Who the hell has time to figure all that shit out? How long can you live PRODUCTIVE like that's supposed to balance work and family life?
For me, I'd rather think for myself for I might want in life...not some stupid software...
flash 6.0 locks up my linux box. I haven't run any other piece of proprietary code on my linux box but flash 5.0 and flash 5.0 works fine on flash 5 sites. Wouldn't it be nice before deploying flash 6.0 to it's server customers, it should include a working flash 6.0 for linux client version. IF enough websites went to flash 6.0, linux users will be forced to use wine and the windows flash plugin.
I have been boycotting any and all flash since I switched over to my Apple iBook for primary use.
Is it really so hard for them to recompile to PowerPC? I've tried the offbrand players, and they all seem to lock my browser up on certain files.
(And no I will not reboot to OS 9/X or use MacOnLinux just to watch a damn flash movie!)
You can't judge a book by the way it wears its hair.
director is dying , it's an open secret that MM is letting it die
your skills are worthless , you are a dinosaur
+ lingo is probably the most ridiculous language ever invented
Get it from here. It is a handy toolbar with many options. Kill Flash is one on the current Web page.
It works well in Linux, Windows, and MacOS X (v1.3 has a bug for installing XPI).
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
Flash is very good for all sorts of sites. Animations, games, navigation you name it. But in these days of layoffs and corporate scrounging I somehow think this is going to go the way most other products from macromedia have gone recently. What many Flash programmers don't realise (and I've seen this in three companies I've worked for) is that whenever you make a complex database driven site, the sheer expenditure of that site will force you to make an html frontend in order to be sure that you reach all possible customers, because the beancounters will say that "only" reaching 95% of all possible customers is not enough. This means that the extra expenditure of having to design a totally seperate Flash site will get questioned, and in many cases, simply rejected, because time is money and Flash coders cost money.
Think about it. Apart from Macromedia's site, how many other large commercial portals or online businesses are done using Flash?
I'd read the whitepaper - skip to pg 9 to avoid alot of hyperbolic marketing ya ya.
.. ). There's no way YET of adding extensions from what I'd seen.
.NET apps.
MM may have just destroyed the market for advanced Flash stand-alone tools ( eg SWFStudio - http://www.northcode.com/ )
Central may be a classic example of platform overreach - gratuitously cannibalizing complementary tools and markets. MX comm server is another example of this.
Central doesn't actually provide the functionality of environments like SWFStudio , but appears to be moving in that direction. From a development perspective it's basically a runtime that extends the flash player , but doesn't provide access to system level api's. All Central viable apps run in a common shell w/ persistant MM branding and commerce features. The extensions accommodate very basic facilities( regx parsing , secure sockets , PMI etc
The problem is that Central poaches some of the most sought after features of the Flash stand-alone utilities without providing real extensibility , nor a true stand-alone flash app. A significant proportion of Flash developers who might have otherwise purchased SWFStudio , or a similar app , will now be satisfied w/ Central. Conversely programmers who might otherwise create advanced Flash development utilities may now perceive that it isn't worth their while because even if Central isn't as sophisticated as their potential offering they're now looking at a smaller and much more competitive market - alot of these tool vendors are probably 1-3 man shops. Also if MM wises up and provides an add-in mechanism there's going to be very little room for establishing a feature advantage. How much effort would you put into creating Flash development tools in this context ??
So the end result may be that MM has squelched the most viable path for the advancement of Flash on the desktop without having provided a satisfactory alternative. The value that Central brings to Flash developers as a commerce and deployment environment is trivial compared to the potential market for Flash as a UI medium for C++ and
$.02
Ok, maybe this is an odd thought - but I've been doing some pretty serious application development using PHP-GTK. Coupled with the ZEND encoder, it allows for rather eye-popping, rapidly developed, cross-platform, powerful software.
Using PHP means integrating a GUI front-end with a server-driven (PHP) back-end is a snap. And GTK is a decent client toolkit. (not the best, but decent IMHO)
Now FLASH is moving into this area, and it just may well succeed at it. Remember, "worse is better".
BTW, PHP is surprisingly well suited for client-side apps and other programming tasks. (I've written a mail relay with it, among other, more standard "web" things)
-Ben
I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
Boo hoo, you were trolled. What a baby.
We can neither love nor pity nor forgive. If you make a slip in handling us you die!
"Authors" is a widely-used expression meaning "those who thought of the idea and made it happen."
For example, ancient historians such as Polybius used the phrase "authors of the rebellion" to denote a group of people who had rebelled against the ruling authority.
-kgj
You say you don't know the situation. There have been a lot of problems with Macromedia bugs. It doesn't matter what eEye said. They were dealing with a political situation, I imagine. They said they had found many more bugs.
All of your reasons sound plausible (except for "unnecessarily taunting Microsoft" - I think of it more as the reverse). But I don't think any of them matter compared to one simple factor you did not mention: size.
Flash player has historically been ~250k. This is downloaded in under a minute even on a modem. It adds little to the size of any web browser. You get a lot of bang for that 250k. Flash is very pretty and in some ways powerful (also very awful to author, but that's another post altogether). IE's ActiveX autoinstall was shooting it out around the world - even without anyone's help it would become ubiquitous. But of course it's also very attractive and easy to bundle.
Compare this with Java. 1.0 was rather small - in the neighborhood of a megabyte, if I recall, or even less? It's been a while. Small enough that Netscape could package it without committing suicide and Microsoft followed suit. 1.1 was a couple of times larger. The browser folks bit the bullet. Barely.
Java 1.2 finally arrived. The English-only JRE weighed in at an appaling 5.3 megabytes. Bigger than most web browsers! This insured that it would never see the inside of an internet-mass-distributed client. Only Microsoft could have saved it, by putting it on the Windows CD. And they did! But they were unable to resist embracing and extending it. By making MS Java incompatible with Sun Java, they had deliberately violated their license (in order to "pollute" the Java market), and Sun sued them for it, halting matters on that front for some years.
Fast forward to 2002. English only JRE 1.4 is now weighing in at 8.2 megabytes! Flash 6 is topping out at... ~500k?
Sun gave up on the web client. It was probably a wise move. With Netscape dead, Microsoft was the only game in town, and the only way Microsoft was going to play fair was if a few judges teamed up to force them to. Java wasn't a vector art tool with a tacked-on scripting language... it was a huge and growing general purpose computing platform, and it had grown too big to distribute "casually" over the net... In their defense, Java was designed to meet vastly different needs than Flash. It's much more powerful. But that was the price they paid.
In general, I thought it was possible to do much better in terms of size and initialization time. Beyond spending more time tuning I suggested at the time that they modularize the system; use a small Java framework (~200k) that can download various parts of the API on-demand; then you can do version tagging and the whole thing looks more like ActiveX (or perhaps a Shockwave XTRA) where you reference a package and a version number and it gets transparently pulled from a URL if the client doesn't have it. This way at least users won't have to pull megabytes of CORBA and JDBC and three different GUI API's just to do some vector art or a little stock ticker widget, and there's the chance the whole thing can be doable for real users at large. But it boils down to big scary changes and it's no surprise Sun just threw up their hands and let it go.
You are smart to draw the comparison. It's highly ironic that Java has ended up overshadowed by Flash on web clients, and may someday lose even more ground to it elsewhere... there's a profound lesson about the evolution of software technology in there.
Want to Know How to Cheat the GPL? Read On!
to get macromedia extensions a lot easier. I'd much rather use this than their web interface.
I knew that before I started to reply. Didn't it occur to you that my reply could have been on purpose, never mind the troll? After all, I did go AC as well.
Now they had to reinvent the shareware system, copy and paste functionality and put the Macromedia logo all over. Like that is going to help Flash publishers.
I just want to make MY applications. Not some kind of deriviate. It could have been so powerful. They would have pushed a lot of development tools out of the market.
"Macromedia, Inc., the same people that brought you Flash, have done it again"
Actually, all macromedia did was BUY futuresplash
animator from FutureSplash Inc because it was a
very great, much easier to use compeditor to their
shockwave offering if you just wanted to do simple
good looking animation. I can remember being forced
to use the original product under protest, then
actually not minding having to use windows for a few
weeks because it was actually a fun to use product.
The most important thing any republican needs to know.
Hello!
There are a lot of applications, where you can skin - like WinAmp,KDE,Gnome. But all the skinning is limited. Writing a MP3 with a cool Flash skin is very hard - I tried it.
But with Flash you could write cool skins, that do a little bit more than just moving a couple of bitmaps. And this skin could be done by real designers.
You may say, that's something you don't need, because it's something for the eye. But hey why was skinning introduced then?
Regards,
Sounds like Multimedia Fusion (www.clickteam.com)
I've never been very good with animation. I tried flash but couldn't stand it. Actionscript seemed complex and all I wanted to do really was make a site and post articles and pictures. Today however "Web Applications" are supposed to be the next big thing. Flash has evolved as an animation tool to a GUI tool. Where flash wins is: Say I wanna register or buy something from a site. The checkout process usually takes 3 steps where you have to go forward, back, who knows. Anywho, flash is nice cause you can do it all viewing the same page, all the transaction process can be taken care of in scenes in Flash. Check out their Pet Market app in DevNet, pretty cool! I see Flash as a good tool because it can show off products or provide their user with a good "experience". At the same time it can handle scripts and databases. Users their aiming for don't live on the internet. They want something attractive and easy to use while consuming little time. Where it sucks: Too much animation. I hate viewing intros for a site, I almost fall asleep waiting for the preloader to finish! There isn't much usability out there for it either. If Nike were able to show me every angle of the shoe, let me change colors, watch videos of it in action it may be a little more inviting. To me and most of the web software, people wont buy it until the actual fast always on connection is there. Sure I have the tools to video conference, but I don't have the speed at all. Sure I could check a movie time on my mobile device, but why dont I save myself $300 bucks and open up a damn paper!