There's been a lot of buzz surrounding Apple's stance on the exclusion of Flash on the iPhone and now the iPad. For many of us designers and developers, the evolution of Apple and Adobe have been a match made in heaven. But times have changed….
Breaking Down Apple's Logic
When the average person thinks of Flash, banners and advertisements are the first things that come to mind, followed by Youtube and other video streaming applications. So it's safe to say that the public perception of Flash first starts off with a limited viewpoint before it gradually works its way to thinking it as a well designed and award winning creative technique.
Which leads me to believe that Apple's reason for excluding Flash on it's mobile platform, is to a certain extent (dare I say it) a logical choice. *gasps*
Adobefication
To fully understand the logic behind Apple's decision, we need to look at Flash and its performance issues. This has been the foundation for a number of arguments supporting the exclusion of Flash. The three major strikes against Flash include:
1. Its proprietary standard.
2. Its process intensiveness (especially on Macs)
3. Its lack of maturity (as a fully functioning non-lite platform) within the Mobile device market.
To be fair, we need to also look at the performance of the developer. Adobe's Flash engineers certainly aren't blameless, but the developer is really the first step in the chain of making something work and work well. Flash has been around for a while now and with age, comes maturity. Over the course Flash's progression, Macromedia and Adobe have steered it in the right direction. However Flash still has a long way to go and is ready for a prototype shift. Given Steve Jobs' recent comments, I think it's time for Adobe to put the cards on the table and call Apple's bluff.
Making a Mends
My solutions for Abobe (I hope you're out there listening) is to first create a robust and well designed interface system for debugging applications that is easily accessible and dependable to all levels of developer. Listening for the fan firing up is no way to determine that you've got run away processes and less then ideal code. Adobe also needs to enable adequate staging environments so that debugging and testing can be done within an applications ultimate environment. There are a number of tools and utilities to debug and test, but nothing that fully checks the performance of an application and gives the developer clear data on where bottlenecks are and what can be done to avoid them. In addition to that, Adobe should consider making the SWF format an open standard. Adobe's purchase of Macromedia was largely in part to take over the ubiquity of Flash on the web, so relinquishing that control would be a very progressive business move but in the long run pay off well for them.
HTML5 standing by
Ahhhh HTML 5… Why did you get dragged into this mess? Well the quick answer is that a certain someone has poised HTML5 to be the "Flash Killer". It's suicide to say "never" in the web development world, so I'll simply say incredibly unlikely that HTML5 would ever fully replace Flash. In fact, when this phase is over, I believe Flash and HTML5 will be good friends. HTML5 is in NO position at this point to be compared to Flash.
Here's why I'm confident in my argument:
HTML5 hasn't been fully established yet and most importantly it hasn't come even close to the level of development maturity of Flash.
HTML5 is a framework and a structured format (which has been pointed out in other discussions). It's method of development and implementation is totally different the Flash. Compilation of an application versus runtime execution of code.
The development tools for creating applications with Flash have had a long time to evolve. Project management and code management, OOP based utilities and frameworks, etc.
From a business perspective, why would a client want to pay for a developer to build an application from the ground up that rivals the best of the best with Flash?
IF, you were able to take the time and build a fully functional experience with all the MVC, physics, and layered video goodness of a top level Flash site with HTML5, if it's developed poorly, you are going to experience the same issues that a Flash site would. And who knows, maybe it would be even worse?
Code protection and copyright enforcement of development. (Something Flash could do better as well)
With that being said, I look at this as Oranges and Cherry Trees. Flash Developers should in now way take the defense by bashing HTML5. It's great and certainly has it's place in the developers toolbox. I just believe that it has become a scape goat in what is largely a school yard fight.
Back to Apple…
One side of my family has grown up with Apple, while the other has gown up with Microsoft and IBM compatible computers. The Apple side consists of an Architectural Scale Model Maker and Architect, a Wardrobe Stylist, an Audio Engineer, an industrial designer, and myself a Flash Developer/Web Designer. On the other side, I have a Computer Programer, and a Certified Public Accountant. Why am I sharing this? Maybe for full disclosure, but also to emphasize that I have always enjoyed their products and approach to using creative technology. Yet, I'm quick to point out when Apple isn't being pragmatic and would never consider myself a fanboy.
I was passionate about Apple products until having owned an iPhone for 2 years. Now seeing the release of the iPad, I've grown even more disenchanted with Apple. And no, it's not just because they don't have Flash on them. The exclusion of Flash on the iPhone is part of a bigger issue. It's the exclusion of Applications in general. I realize that control over Apps and the exclusion of third party layers helps Apples quality control, but at the same time the end user also suffers. Apple also criticizes mobile performance that use Flash and there is some truth to that, but that could be easily addressed with some help from Adobe.
I'm starting to feel like Apple has taken on a totalitarian dictatorship on what can be put in the device and what can't. I don't believe Apple should dictate what I do with my phone. How would the world react if they did this with our computers? It seems as though Apple has lost site of its loyal customers that have been around since the earlier days. Ask anyone that uses Macs in their day to day endeavors and see if they feel like Apple is developing and marketing new products that are geared to them. In my opinion they aren't. The 3Gs has features the first release of the iPhone should have had. And the iPad is sort of silly in my opinion. The iPhone and the iPad are for non Apple users, or is at least focused on attracting non Apple users. As far as business goes, this makes perfect sense. You can't grow a business by just catering to the people that already own the products, but at the same time you can't ignore the ones that do either. It would be nice if some of the focus was shared with products that are geared towards the people that helped them get to where they are. Don't forget about us tech savvy people that do enjoy your products and push them to the limit. It's gotten to the point where the jail-broken phone has become the developer edition. Apple has built a box outside of the box. Because of this, I'm saying good bye to my iPhone. I've downloaded the Android SDK and I'm impatiently waiting for the Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 to be released in the U.S. As a Flash developer, the Android environment makes sense with respect to the languages and the grass roots approach to development.
The silver lining in this whole situation is that both Apple and Abobe stand to better themselves. Apple has put some real issues and concerns on the table for Adobe yet I also believe that Jobs is being a bit stubborn and egotistical. Apple is flouting themselves as being the holy grail of how to funnel Applications to the end user, yet their hardware is two iterations behind what it should be.
And I'm a curious person. I don't see myself developing Flash apps forever, or at least exclusively. And to use Jobs' words, I have no problems leaving the past behind. I'm looking forward to learning more about how to develop for Android and the freedom of an Open Source environment.
I think of the Flash issue as the final straw, but I'm happy to have a device that will run Flash 10.1. If it works or not remains to be seen, but I don't need anyone telling me it doesn't work without experiencing for myself.
I've decided to take a step back in the hopes of taking two steps forward. HydroTween is now deprecated for the most part as I've stripped it down and done some rebuilding in the form of OpenTween. The hope is by having the project on gitgub, the project will attract some extra help and involvement. Some other reasons for rebuilding are the modularity of the properties and the goal of having easy to add/configurable properties and property groups. Performance inprovements are another important reason. Also the fact that the code is using an MIT license means that it can be added to whatever project you want as long as the license boiler plate is intact. It's even set up so you can create your own "private label" tweening engine for your development projects. I.E. I have MyOwnTween which extends OpenTween and allows you to reorder your params, settings, etc.
I have yet to implement the image process tweening properties or give this a thorough testing so it's still in the infant stages, but I'm excited about where this is going and giving the project a fresh restart. Check out Git if you haven't already and give me a shout if you want to get involved!
Github is the social networking version of a version control system. The learning curve with Git can be a little tricky at first, but after installing and learning the basic commands you will be up and running. The beauty of Git lies in the way it collects and organizes changes and data. Merging from multiples sources is reliable and makes for more contributions. This will hopefully encourage more people to get involved with Open Source projects including QueueLoader! I will still be providing a standalone link either here on the site or on the deprecated Google Page, but for wiki usage and change info definitely go to Github.
Having some problems with the vcs on Google, but the featured link is current. I'm in the process of moving QueueLoader over to github to ultimately make life easier. 3.1.8 addressed an issue with throwing an error when running the queue with no items in it as well as the QUEUE_COMPLETE event firing if you run a queue with all items generating errors and the queue's ignoreErrors argument set to true.
Just completed a rush project for the film Across The Hall. Being that this is a noir styled film, I came up with a simple class that emulates the effect of sign letters turning on. Could work for Fluorescent lights as well as other stuff. Easiest way to use it is to link the MovieClip in your library you intend to export and point the base class path to FluorescentBallastFlicker.
Then in your code, instantiate and attach the MovieClip to your DisplayObject and the MovieClip will automatically set its alpha to 0 and will be ready to turn on.
The turnOn() method takes the arguments; seconds of turn on time, seconds of delay, and an optional callback function when the effect has finished.
Announcing a long overdue update of QueueLoader last week. Fixes include finally addressing the error handling of a missing item that is first loaded. Also some optimization of the utility with interfaces. Click here to download
The google group has been growing and hopefully it has been helpful. I set up an approval process for membership to reduce the amount of spam. I typically approve members within 12 hours. Click here to join
Any additional suggestions or issues are welcome. Also feel free to click on our sponsors!
UPDATE: 3.1.3: Fixed width and height prop in Image and SWF items. Added autoPlay to FLV. event.content returns the NetStream object and using event.content.seek(0) and event.content.togglePlay() will start the stream if the item is NOT set to autoPlay (false is the default).
UPDATE: 3.1.2: Changed path prop to URLRequest.
UPDATE: 3.1.1: Fixed an error thrown in Flex 4 SDK in FLVItem.as – Also Added version numbers to all Files. Update is on the SVN.
I'm excited to announce that QueueLoader has undergone a major revision. I finally had a chance to rewrite the class and make it more "Open Source" friendly and scalable. All loadable items have been broken out into separate classes implementing an ILoadable interface as well as extending an abstract loadable item. This will also make it easier for adding special features to loadable items, as well as promote the evolution of the package. The package path has been changed, but most of the API and general ease of use has remained the same. The most significant change is how to access loading items via the event callbacks. They have been broken out to container, targ, and content. They are explained further below in the "Useful Tips" section. I'm going to do my best to include as many frequently requested examples, but first let's go over the current features of this revision:
Note: Both of the downloads above include the dependent libraries Popforge (.wav) and Nochump (.zip). I am not including these libraries on the SVN. Be sure to check for updates above to changes in the core QueueLoader source. If you wish to run QueueLoader without the additional libraries; In ItemList.as comment out line 45 and 46 where the zip and wav classes are being added to the loadable item list. Also comment out lines 82 and 84 in QueueLoader where the zip and wav filetype constant id numbers are defined. Finally be sure to remove ZIPItem.as and PCMSoundItem.as from the "items" package. If you wish to add your own custom item, you would simply follow the instructions in reverse but adding a unique number to the file type constant id.
Also Note: Just to clear up an possible confusion, this is a version change and not another revision. The URL to this page might be confusing as it looks like rev31 when it's 3.1.
If you are loading a ton of images, you might consider putting them all on separate frames of a SWF and using the draw frames feature. If the image collection gets updated, putting them in a Zipped folder might be easier. This will alleviate the opening and closing of HTTP connections.
event.container – access to the container you specify in the addItem() method.
event.targ – access to the Loader of an Item in the case of an Image or SWF. This is what is added to the container DisplayObject if it has been added to the addItem() arguments.
event.content – access to the loaded item's data or content. In the case of an Image, it would be the Bitmap. In the case of a SWF, it would be the SWF's timeline. In the case of CSS, it would be the StyleSheet. In the case of audio, it would be the Sound. Etc…
Keep in mind QueueLoader is a utility, and not a component. Many of the more complex usage scenarios can very easily be built on top of QueueLoader. Using QueueLoader does require some basic knowledge of Actionscript 3.0, listeners, events, as well as scope. It's also much easier to extend the functionality if you are looking to modify the features of an existing loadable item. Simply replace a file type constant and add the Item to the ItemList with a regex for the filetype. Just make sure the file suffix doesn't conflict with another suffix.
QueueLoaderLite has been included in the package and will undergo a rewrite soon as well making the distinction between the two clearer.
This will let you pass URL variables to a file that is to be loaded. Keep in mind that the example data.php file has no php code in it so that it will run locally. However on a php server you would have the code shown below in the data.php file. This will pass the url variable $user a value of yourname, which you should see as yourname.jpg in the XML output.
PCM Wav Loading Example
Make sure the Popforge library is included in your source along with the modified SoundFactory class that bypasses the swf.bin file. This modified class writes the bytes to a ByteArray instead.
Direct QL Formatted XML Loading Example
This snippet of XML can reside anywhere in your XML document. It allows for automatic passing of QueueLoader data. The prefix attribute simply adds the prefix when the movie is in external/standalone mode when publishing locally. If your paths jump directories or require absolute paths, then you can leave it as prefix="".
The loadXML() method also accepts a scope variable which relates to the container attribute. I.E. scope[container]. If it's null, then the container has no parent reference and is the same as adding null to an addItem() method.
UPDATE: rev39, synced up with the 0.5.0 updates. Matrix tweening and some bug fixes. Fixed callback error from previous updates
Fuse style functionality has been moved from HydroTween to a separate class called HydroSequence! This decision was made to offer an easier and more flexible way to control sequences by having clearer access to SequenceCA super methods. Also makes it easier to enhance the functionality of the sequencing parser. Here is the new syntax:
Grouped Array targets are supported and the ability to add sequence objects with the addItem() method as well as using the constructor to create sequences.
In other news, I added a frame property to HydroTween which has been added to the demo swf here:
Some extra advanced features from SequenceCA and beyond:
Duration Advance:
var goItem : HydroSequence = new HydroSequence([{target:target,
x:400,
y:40,
Blur_blurX:32,
Blur_blurY:32,
DropShadow_distance:16,
DropShadow_alpha:16,
rotation:180,
start_alpha:.5,
alpha:1,
scaleX:5,
scaleY:5,
color:0x0000FF,
useRelative:true,
duration:1, // Note Duration is 1. When this finsishes, it waits for the other group item.
easing:Quintic.easeIn},
{target:target2,
x:300,
Blur_blurX:0,
Blur_blurY:0,
scaleX:1,
scaleY:1,
color:HydroTween.RESET,
duration:1, // Note Duration is one, but...
repeater:new LinearGoRepeater(2), // Repeater creates a 1 second tween * 2.
easing:Quintic.easeInOut}]);
// Here we add an advance property and instantiate an OnDurationComplete Object to tell// the sequence to skip ahead after 1 second instead of waiting for the full duration of // the sequence Object/item
goItem.addItem({target:[target,target2], advance:new OnDurationComplete(1), alpha:0, duration:6});
goItem.addItem({target:[target,target2], alpha:1, duration:1});
// Another grouped sequence Object/item with a function call
goItem.addItem([{target:[target,target2], x:10, duration:1},{func:trace, args:["Start x tween"]}]);
goItem.addItem({func:trace, args:["Sequence Complete"]});
goItem.start();
Made some fixes and updates per the helpful people on Google code as well as Richard Willis and Romuald Quantin. Google code site have been updated as well.
Getting ready to leave for MN and I'm very excited to be a part of Moses' presentation at Flashbelt 2008! I will be providing a brief introduction to HydroTween. HydroTween is a multi-purpose tweening parser that runs on top of the Go framework. If you are familiar with ZigoEngine, Fuse, or Tweener, then using HydroTween should be a seamless transition. In this post, you will find the examples shown during the presentation. I've also put together an online version of what I will be showing. I was hoping to also include a demonstration of the Making Things controller running a tween on a servo, but my laptop isn't being cooperative. I will provide a separate post with an update on that as well as a library I am working on for controlling modules.
Back to the subject at hand, here are the 3 examples that I will be showing. The first is an example of generic tweening with most of the basic properties, filters, and image/hsb tweening. The second is a Fuse type example using navigation with multiple tweening properties running at once. The last is a Papervision3D example that is tweening a number of properties including brightness. Thanks to Andy Zupko's heroic efforts of merging the GreatWhite and Effects branches of Papervision together, we have alpha and the other none-positioning properties at our tweening disposal for 3D objects!
I also urge you to check out my previous post that has useful information and source examples, along with changes and important features that have been added. HydroTween will call you renderer for automatic updating of your Papervision scene by registering with HydroTween using the init3D() method. One important new addition is the ability to pass a DisplayObject3D target into this init method for automatic use of the lookAt() method.
