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Flash IDE Can Now Reach Non-Flash Targets (Including Open Source)

Posted by timothy on from the what's-your-pleasure dept.

lars_doucet (2853771) writes Flash CC now has an SDK for creating custom project file formats; this lets you use the Flash IDE to prepare and publish content for (not-the-flash-player) compile targets. Among these new platforms is OpenFL, a fully open-source re-implementation of the Flash API that exports to Javascript and C++ (no Flash Player!), among other targets: When Adobe demoed the custom project feature at Adobe MAX the other night, they brought out Joshua Granick (lead maintainer of OpenFL) to show off a custom OpenFL project format that lets you make Flash Art in Flash CC, then compile it out to Flash, HTML5, and native C++ (desktop+mobile) targets. Maybe Adobe heard us after all?

57 comments

  1. Why did this read like an exploit report? by Required+Snark · · Score: 1

    Sounds like a malware creation kit to me.

    --
    Why is Snark Required?
    1. Re:Why did this read like an exploit report? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Exports to Javascript... I'll donate to the first browser projects that integrates Noscript as default.

    2. Re:Why did this read like an exploit report? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Because anything Flash is Malware.
      Advertising is pretty much all it is good for.

    3. Re:Why did this read like an exploit report? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Sounds like a malware creation kit to me.

      Now you can have Adobe exploits on every platform..

    4. Re:Why did this read like an exploit report? by matbury · · Score: 2

      So you're claiming that Flash Player is a security threat and a vector for malware. Is that correct?

      OK, the article is about developing apps and web content that don't use Flash Player, i.e. HTML+JS+CSS, C++, etc.

      An IDE they mention, OpenFL is free and open source. Anyone can see the source code and check for any potential malware or exploits.

      Installing native apps in your OS is a way bigger security and privacy risk than accessing web content and apps through a browser.

      Even if you do publish apps for Flash Player, Flash Player is less of a security/malware threat than Apple Quicktime, Adobe Acrobat, and Javascript (JS usually tops the malware threat charts). In fact, Flash Player consistently falls low on the lists of security threats. Flash Player is iTunes' App Store and Google Play's biggest competitor. Where did you hear that Flash Player is a malware problem again?

      BTW, has anyone mentioned that FlashDevelop http://www.flashdevelop.org/ is free and open source and supports multiple export/compiling formats?

    5. Re:Why did this read like an exploit report? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Have you bought your tinfoil hat already?
      Go take a programming course if you don't have a clue what Javascript is, what it can do, etc etc and why forcing blocking it by default it is an idiot idea.
      There's a big difference in Javascript vs Flash/Silverlight/Java applets and so on.
      Without Javascript you can't do any kind of client side interaction besides using links, and guess what, we're not in the 90s anymore.

      Blocking Javascript won't block anything that can be done server-side, and Javascript can't access your local filesystem.
      If your concern is javascript exploits, well, any language can be exploited, not a Javascript problem.
      If your concern is privacy, then use something that blocks access to third party sites, like Ghostery.

    6. Re:Why did this read like an exploit report? by tepples · · Score: 1

      Need a web browser with no script? I think Lynx is still being developed.

    7. Re:Why did this read like an exploit report? by davester666 · · Score: 1

      No, he's claiming that Flash CC is a malware creation kit.

      Pretty much everybody except Adobe knows Flash Player is a security threat and a vector for malware.

      --
      Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!
    8. Re:Why did this read like an exploit report? by exomondo · · Score: 1

      No, he's claiming that Flash CC is a malware creation kit.

      And how does one create malware with it? Flash Player has a history of having security vulnerabilities that can be exploited to be used to deliver malware but the malware isn't the SWF files that run on it.

      Pretty much everybody except Adobe knows Flash Player is a security threat and a vector for malware.

      Yes but this article is all about using Flash CC for targets that are explicitly not Flash Player.

  2. TCB in a FLASH by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Until August 16, 1977.

  3. Flash IDE ? by alexhs · · Score: 1, Interesting

    Flash IDE ?
    Is that a parallel ATA solid-state drive ?

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    I have discovered a truly marvelous proof of killer sig, which this margin is too narrow to contain.
    1. Re:Flash IDE ? by _merlin · · Score: 1

      I thought of the ATA Flash PCMCIA card variant.

    2. Re:Flash IDE ? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Pretty sure, since this is 'news for nerds' that most programmers would be familiar with an Interactive Developer Environment.

    3. Re:Flash IDE ? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And Integrated Drive Electronics too. This is 'news for nerds', after all.

    4. Re:Flash IDE ? by AndroSyn · · Score: 1

      I too thought this was something about some sort of Compact Flash/IDE type interface and was wondering why anyone actually cared too much about IDE drive interfaces, or using non flash drives, in 2014.

      Crappy headline.

    5. Re:Flash IDE ? by unixisc · · Score: 1

      I too was wondering - do they mean Flash as in Adobe Flash, or Flash as in semiconductor NVMs?

  4. Is this OSX only? Does it run on Linux by operator_error · · Score: 1

    It looks like Adobe is trying sell tools, which is fair enough. Adobe Cloud is req'd. Does it run on Linux? The most detailed spec I could gather is:

    The Architecture, MAC-friendliness, and the Boost (a la NOS!)

    Flash Pro CC is a comprehensively refactored, modular, 64-bit application. During the course of this release, the entire code-base was refreshed to turn Flash Pro in to a native cocoa application.

    I'm not talking about what OS the tool outputs to, what OS is required to run this hot new IDE from Adobe? Or is this one of these things that'll run in Chrome OS maybe, and be cross platform that way?

    1. Re:Is this OSX only? Does it run on Linux by halsathome · · Score: 1

      Mac or Windows.
      http://helpx.adobe.com/flash/s....
      Somebody who has actually used it could probably tell if it will run under wine

    2. Re:Is this OSX only? Does it run on Linux by drkstr1 · · Score: 1

      It does not (or at least not well and not for long). The DRM on CC is an invasive bitch. I keep a pireted copy of CS5 to run in wine.

      --
      Fanboy Status: Apache Flex, C#, Eclipse, KDE, Pirate Party, Ron Paul, Slackware, Windows 7
    3. Re: Is this OSX only? Does it run on Linux by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      They aren't trying to sell tools, they are trying to rent tools.

    4. Re: Is this OSX only? Does it run on Linux by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      They aren't trying to sell tools, they are trying to rent tools.

      They are selling you a license to use it, just as they (and all other software vendors) have always done. You have never "bought" software, you have only ever "licensed" it. In fact even with free software you are only licensing it, you dont own it and are not free to do what you wish with it.

  5. Generated code is poor by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    While I think the Flash authoring environment is great for putting together animations, the problem will be the generated code it produces. I tried out Adobe Edge awhile back, and was thoroughly disappointed by the code - neither optimised nor maintainable - it reminded me of the code Dreamweaver would churn out from years ago.

    It's too bad, because HTML5 needs a good authoring environment for animations (whether canvas, webgl or css) - and being able to use an industry standard like the Flash IDE would make it much easier - though an open source option would obviously be preferable. Perhaps Apache Flex could fill the graphical void.

  6. I'm a vegetarian... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Insightful

    ...I don't eat "Flash", you insensitive clod.

    On another note: why does anyone still use flash ? Horrible contraption, eating resources, killing browsers, harming productivity. Obsolete it already.

    1. Re:I'm a vegetarian... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      why does anyone still use flash ? Horrible contraption, eating resources, killing browsers, harming productivity. Obsolete it already.

      That's funny because twenty years ago, people were saying exactly the same things about x86 processors. And yet x86 are everywhere today, with no chance of obsolescence any time soon. Why does anyone still use flash? Because it's useful.

    2. Re:I'm a vegetarian... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Less useful that it used to be though. Everybody hate flash player, and since Adobe pulled flash player for mobiles, it's been a declining target. I can see why Adobe wants to start moving away from tools that only target flash player, and towards stuff that can target any browser or even native code.

    3. Re:I'm a vegetarian... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It would be much funnier it the subject was:
      I'm a vagatarian

      But this is /. after all, maybe you'll see the fun in it some time in the future.

    4. Re: I'm a vegetarian... by Karlt1 · · Score: 1

      That's funny because twenty years ago, people were saying exactly the same things about x86 processors.

      Slashdot has a long sordid history with Flash.

      Pre-Android: "Flash sucks. It's proprietary"

      Post Android when Apple was denying Flash on iOS and Google and Adobe were praising how great Flash was on Android: "Flash is great!"

      Adobe dumps support for Flash on Android: "Flash sucks. Its proprietary."

    5. Re:I'm a vegetarian... by tepples · · Score: 1

      What's the better alternative to Adobe software for making vector animations to be distributed to the public? In my tests, rendering them to video bloats them by a factor of 10 compared to distributing them in SWF format.

    6. Re: I'm a vegetarian... by causality · · Score: 1

      That's funny because twenty years ago, people were saying exactly the same things about x86 processors.

      Slashdot has a long sordid history with Flash.

      Pre-Android: "Flash sucks. It's proprietary"

      Post Android when Apple was denying Flash on iOS and Google and Adobe were praising how great Flash was on Android: "Flash is great!"

      Adobe dumps support for Flash on Android: "Flash sucks. Its proprietary."

      It's that proprietary nature that makes this a concern at all. If it weren't proprietary then it wouldn't matter if Adobe themselves decided to release it for a particular platform. The community would produce a version that would run on just about any widely-used system.

      --
      It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein
    7. Re:I'm a vegetarian... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You have an odd definition of public. Mine doesn't exclude linux users.

    8. Re:I'm a vegetarian... by tepples · · Score: 1

      My PC runs Xubuntu and can at least view SWFs as intended, even if it can't run the Flash software to produce them.

    9. Re:I'm a vegetarian... by Blaskowicz · · Score: 1

      It eats less resources and kills less browsers than javascript.
      The only really obnoxious thing about it is it tripled CPU requirements to play streaming video, when it replaced Real Player and WMV for that use. Full screen playback especially was incredibly demanding, perhaps similar to the requirements for real time encoding of said video. Every late 90s video card had a YUV to RGB converter and a scaler that made full screen, better quality divx and DVD good on about a 500MHz CPU or less.

  7. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain! by Zontar+The+Mindless · · Score: 0

    http://www.theregister.co.uk/2...

    --
    Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
  8. Authoring tool by BorgDrone · · Score: 5, Insightful

    This was to be expected, Adobe's biggest asset with Flash was it's authoring tool and the millions of people who are familiar with it. No one cares *how* the content they made is played back . In the end the flash plugin is irrelevant.

  9. Maybe they heard us by cerberusss · · Score: 4, Funny

    Maybe Adobe heard us after all?

    Yeah, maybe they listened to us! There was a board meeting in a hot tub on top of a huge black skyscraper, with hookers and blackjack. They were laughing and counting money and all of a sudden, a mobile phone goes off. Then a fat white old dude reaches over to the phone and says apologetically, "sorry everybody, gotta take this one, it's a client of ours".

    Then there's maybe a second of silence and everybody laughs really hard. The prostitutes don't get it, but they laugh as well.

    --
    8 of 13 people found this answer helpful. Did you?
    1. Re:Maybe they heard us by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Was the latest ED-209 law enforcement unit demo'd in that board meeting?

  10. HAHAHAHA by drinkypoo · · Score: 1, Redundant

    Maybe Adobe heard us after all?

    Hilarious. No, they heard the bell tolling, and they didn't have to ask for whom it was doing that. Flash is hated by everyone but some of the people who make flash movies and its influence has been waning as people leave it behind. They know that their days are numbered if they don't give up on the Flash runtime.

    --
    "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
  11. Of course they heard us by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Their software listens to everything happening on the computer it's installed on, and reports back.

    I'd be more surprised if they DIDN'T hear us.

  12. Re:are you fucking kidding me? by quetwo · · Score: 2

    Except they've pivoted and HAVE been making HTML5 authoring tools for the last 3 years. Edge, Muse, Flash (yes, it's been exporting to HTML5 for a while now), among others use HTML5 as their final output.

  13. I thought this was by rossdee · · Score: 1

    Something to do with solid state hard drives

  14. Re:are you fucking kidding me? by MisterSquid · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Except they've pivoted and HAVE been making HTML5 authoring tools for the last 3 years. Edge, Muse, Flash (yes, it's been exporting to HTML5 for a while now), among others use HTML5 as their final output.

    I went to a pitch-disguised-as-a-conference for one of Adobe's then-upcoming products (Edge?) and was fairly impressed about Adobe's recommitting to HTML5 authoring and a CSS/JS IDE.

    Fast forward two years and many developers still haven't touched these products because they are avoiding Adobe's subscription-based licensing.

    Adobe needs radically to change their corporate culture because a significant portion of the developers who would love to use their products are NOT going to start paying rent to even read the content they've created.*

    * This sentence is a polite translation of "Adobe can go die in a fire."

    --
    blog
  15. Re: are you fucking kidding me? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I would upgrade to cs7 if only they would offer the product.

  16. Oh great...even shorter battery life by RogueWarrior65 · · Score: 1

    I hope somebody involved with the project has enough brains to make the code power efficient.

  17. But we only have 14 hours to save the earth! by Dogtanian · · Score: 1

    Flash IDE ? Is that a parallel ATA solid-state drive ?

    Pretty sure, since this is 'news for nerds' that most programmers would be familiar with an Interactive Developer Environment.

    Whoosh!

    --
    "Slashdot - News and Chat Sites Deviant". (Click "homepage" link above for details).
  18. Blender by tepples · · Score: 1

    I think the idea is that you make the animation in Blender and then you render to a video format for distribution.

    1. Re:Blender by Curtman · · Score: 1

      I think the idea is that you make the animation in Blender and then you render to a video format for distribution.

      There is burster...

      How the Burster works

      The Burster plugin resolves two major problems that was keeping the Blender from being accepted in business environments. Firstly, Burster allows you to put your Blender Game Engine file at your website. You do not have to record the (very big) movie, upload into the Youtube to show someone what great thing you have done. Secondly, you do not need to worry that someone will use your work without your knowledge. The blender source files could be now encrypted using very strong cryptographic algorithm. This alows you to sell your interactive 3D content without worrying about protecting the property. What about licensing? The Blender source files aren't covered by GPL v2 license so you can do with them whatever you want. The Burster plugin uses blenderplayer as external process, so Burster is not Blender's derivative - although it is still opensource software on GPL. One part of Burster plugin is closed and licensed with very restrictive license - the decode module - which is a shared library. The Burster plugin is free and open source and its source code is covered by GPL license.

    2. Re:Blender by tepples · · Score: 1

      I visited Burster in Firefox on my Nexus 7 and got "We're very sorry, but Firefox can't play Flash on this device. Learn More..." So somehow Burster still appears to be relying on Flash Player. Besides, even on a PC running Windows® OS, will public libraries let users install Burster the way the libraries have already installed Flash Player?

  19. SWF can be more compact than MP4 by tepples · · Score: 1

    No one cares *how* the content they made is played back

    Flash was initially popular because it could squeeze a vector animation into something that could be downloaded over dial-up Internet access in a reasonable amount of time, unlike DCT-based video codecs such as MPEG-1, MPEG-2, Sorenson Spark (H.263), and DivX (MPEG-4 Part 2). And nowadays, a lot of people are behind an Internet connection whose monthly cap isn't much better than dial-up for sustained transfers. Point your bandwidth measuring tool at French Erotic Film (SWF) and then at French Erotic Film (video) and see which pushes more bytes.

    1. Re:SWF can be more compact than MP4 by jrumney · · Score: 1

      French Erotic Film (SWF)

      Perhaps as an indication of how irrelevant Flash has become, my first reaction to seeing that was - you misspelled NSFW.

  20. Re:are you fucking kidding me? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    You can make any type of Flash content possible with out paying a cent. One of the most popular Flash development tools is Flash Develop, it's open and free. Many use Text Wangler too. There are dozen of free tools, dozen of paid tools, all have nothing to do with Adobe. Research it.

  21. You What? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    So we're talking pre-rendered bitmapped videos as an alternative to the kind of flexible, tiny, vector animation that we're used to in flash applets? Or have i missed the point?

    1. Re:You What? by tepples · · Score: 1

      So we're talking pre-rendered bitmapped videos

      Given how much more popular YouTube has become than Newgrounds, and given the willingness of mobile device manufacturers to eschew SWF support even when mobile Internet is capped more harshly then wired broadband, the market says yes.

      as an alternative to the kind of flexible, tiny, vector animation that we're used to in flash applets?

      For flexible, make an OpenGL app instead of a web site.

    2. Re:You What? by exomondo · · Score: 1

      For flexible, make an OpenGL app instead of a web site.

      Or even a WebGL website.

    3. Re:You What? by Blaskowicz · · Score: 1

      Which is fine for the crowd with a less than two-year-old Intel laptop and a less than two-year-old smartphone, not so much for an eight-year-old desktop.
      On random computers, if you're lucky it might show garbage and make the browser very slow till you close the WebGL app, if you're less lucky you crash the browser, if less lucky here's overheating or driver crash. I'm not so much against the concept but it's still years away from working or even a decade till enough older computers have been replaced (think end of support for Windows 7)

  22. Flash again? by Polizei · · Score: 1

    Why do they still call it Flash?
    It's obvious that in the near future it won't be Flash anymore, they're just trying to retain the name for obvious reasons - keep installing the Flash shit on your rig.

    FWIW, I have no flashes installed 3 months now and I'm happier than ever.

  23. Adobe, what are you up to? by Tronster · · Score: 1

    The IDE with the name "Flash" (or "Flash CC" in it's current version) is by far the best 2d animation tool in the industry. That said, despite an ever increasing IDE set of feature, it's horrendous for coding and debugging. The OpenSource project "Flash Develop" ( http://flashdevelop.org/ ) made AS3 usable by the many hobbyists writing games, as well as the AAA's doing UI work via Scaleform's Flash player.

    For those not on the Flash/AS3 scene: there was the meme "Flash is Dead" that started about 3-5 years ago. It's not dead, as-in not at 0% usage, but for about two years it hasn't been a viable tech for most indies to use. (Flash via Adobe's AIR technology does work great on mobile but for some reason, perhaps due to the need of "Flash Builder", this doesn't have as great as a traction amongst indie game devs.) Most indie/AAA devs who really did a stellar job leveraging the low-level bits of Flash, ended up going to HTML5/Javascript or C#/Unity ( http://jacksondunstan.com/ ) . A few did jump over to HaXe ( http://haxe.org/ ), and the award winning "Papers Please" game showed HaXe is viable for indie commercial projects... but it's unproven for larger scale projects and the smaller size of the dev team working on HaXe, has some companies hesitant to explore it.

    So it's great Adobe is adding these hooks to allow OpenFL / HaXe to become more accessible, and thereby help out both the Flash community and their own communities. ... but what about "Flash Builder"? The other Flash IDE, built upon Eclipse that is so broken that if you delete a local project through the Finder, it prevents the whole IDE from even starting up? Is Adobe dropping it? Are they adding the functionality to it? Are they going to make it as friendly to use as FlashDevelop? (I'd love to not have to boot Parallels, just to use a Windows-only IDE.)

    Half of the (former-)Flash blogs I follow, sound as-if Adobe is transitioning away from Flash, putting resources into HTML/Javascript tools instead. And then occasionally, I hear about some new (usually game industry-related) features Adobe is installing in their Flash tools. But even when 100's of indie developers were making a full-time living, selling Flash games, there wasn't a single year at the Game Developer's Conference (GDC) that Adobe had a Flash presence and talked about games with their technology (with the exception of one year showing off "Adobe Director".)

    Depending on if/how the sale of Unity goes to Google, or Microsoft, or whoever... this may be the one opportunity where Adobe can enamor game programmers with a Flash-based development environment (maybe other business sectors as well.)

    It will be interesting to see how this plays out.