Hi Jason,
The scope of Flash was more wide and open than Flex. Flex was created to
target Applications. Most of the time business applications composed by
forms, data grids, lists, graphs and other visual data representations.
While Flash can do that, productivity was very low in real world use cases.
So Flex was the perfect solution to get great visuals and renderings of
that kind of business applications and get a productivity unmatched by
other solutions.
Since Royale was created from Flex concepts it tries to solve the same
scope as Flex, but as we was able to use Flash pieces inside Flex and mix
both, Royale don't want to "cut its own hands" and put a fence. I think we
all want Royale to expand limits and go beyond Flex limits.
About APIs. If I understand correctly, others already go the route to have
"flash.*" APIs to make old Flash SWFs run in JS or WASM.
IMHO, Royale should have its own API. For example if we choose the Event
example in Roayle we have:
org.apache.royale.events.Event
and that makes Royale users be able to compile for SWF (that will in the
end use "flash.events.Event"
COMPILE::SWF
public class Event extends flash.events.Event implements IRoyaleEvent
and for JS will use Google Closure event.
COMPILE::JS
public class Event extends goog.events.Event implements IRoyaleEvent {
If you work in WASM, the org.apache.royale.events.Event, should expand that
class to what WASM specs will impose in the final implementation (don't
know right now what's or maybe this could be a silly example and events be
managed by JS)
So in resume. Working in WASM, would mean as well in working in some
"display" ARQ that would introduce a whole way of drawing and animating in
Royale that not exists right now and that means write compiler, write
classes that support SWF, JS and WASM... and more
I'm right in this way of thinking? or maybe I'm wrong?
Thanks
El mar., 22 oct. 2019 a las 8:03, Alex Harui (<aha...@adobe.com.invalid>)
escribió:
> Hi Jason,
>
> Volunteers in this project are welcome to work on whatever they want.
>
> The reason I am interested in Flex instead of Flash is because Flex was
> designed to abstract away the Flash API, so Flex is going to be more easily
> portable to different runtimes than Flash. Supporting Flash will be more
> work than I have time and interest for. I'm not sure we have the number of
> people to do it, or that they know Flash well enough to do it. Also, last
> time we looked at Li Zhi's code, there were issues about the legality of
> the implementation. Apache probably can't accept reverse-engineered
> implementations.
>
> By focusing on Flex, we actually abstract away the rendering model. MXML
> does not dictate code flow. Flex does not promise a deferred rendering
> model based on frames. We have emulated a fair amount of the networking
> and some of the IO, but I don't want to be obligated to support all of it.
>
> But that doesn't mean you shouldn't try. The Flash implementation might
> be better off in a different repo outside of Apache unless there you can
> get more volunteers to pitch in and clear away any
> legal/intellectual-property/licensing concerns.
>
> My 2 cents,
> -Alex
>
> On 10/21/19, 9:01 PM, "Jason Huang" <jasonhuang1...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Hi guys,
>
> Now I see, we have same goals for delivering a comprehensive SDK to
> our
> users.
>
> As for Flash APIs, for my understanding, it is AS3 language build-in
> basic
> library that provides basic Rendering, IO, networking, etc.
> The relationship of Flash APIs with AS3 is similar to DOM with JS, .Net
> with C#, stdlib with C++, etc. I did not actually compare AS3 to TS, I
> meant
> without flash api support, AS3 would be much worse especially when it
> used
> for targeting web applications.
> To make Royale much more reliable, I suppose except high level flash
> APIs,
> such as MovieClip( timeline based), etc, we should at least consider
> basic
> IO, networking, rendering apis.
>
> As for other projects that tried to emulating flash apis,
> SpriteFlexJS is a project that my friend Li Zhi started 4 years ago,
> our
> initial thought was testing the capabilities for FalconJX compiler,
> After this project, I started AJC project to officially emulating Flash
> APIs for commercial AS3 projects. During AJC development, we made our
> own c++ version of Flash APIs( not finished all of them yet) to be as
> accurate as possible, almost 98% same result as original flash player
> dose,
> regardless so many differences between DOM and flash player.
> OpenFL made all flash API available, but inside it went different
> approaching, graphics vector rendering, event flow, networking are all
> different than original flash player, thus made
> existing AS3 project impossible to use it without seriously modifying
> source codes.
> Ruffle is another project that written in rust to emulate entire flash
> player, here is its own roadmap
>
> https://nam04.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fgithub.com%2Fruffle-rs%2Fruffle%2Fwiki%2FRoadmap&data=02%7C01%7Caharui%40adobe.com%7C7dfef54536e841c3c78f08d756a48ec2%7Cfa7b1b5a7b34438794aed2c178decee1%7C0%7C1%7C637073137086661961&sdata=Xr%2FiNA6%2F1WGNUfvnO82ERW02BDNYKSKSCKFI4phYa3k%3D&reserved=0,
> it is a totally different
> approaching that parsing SWF at runtime plugin(wasm)/ desktop player
> other
> than
> compiling AS3 from the sources once again. When it finished, it would
> be a
> good choice for exiting AS3 projects.
>
> I suggest we get our hands on basic flash API implementations as soon
> as
> possible, how would you guys think?
>
> Cheers
> Jason
>
>
> On Mon, Oct 21, 2019 at 5:05 PM Carlos Rovira <carlosrov...@apache.org
> >
> wrote:
>
> > Hi Jason,
> >
> > to continue complementing the understanding of our goals. Royale has
> the
> > advantage to be prepared in theory to output to multiple targets
> (SWF, JS,
> > WASM, ...native iOS?, native Android?,....). Since Royale is an SDK
> it
> > provides all the user need to build an app (compiler, framework, UI
> set,
> > communications, reflection, XML,....).
> >
> > I think great power of your contribution is to make users that was
> > outputting JS or SWF be able to output WASM without changing their
> user's
> > code.
> >
> > That's for me the main point of Royale for years to come, to make
> users
> > agnostic of technology trends. Royale will handle this for them,
> adding the
> > support so they don't need to change a single line of code in their
> apps.
> >
> > For example, imagine actual teams working with React to make a new
> app.
> > That app has potential to grow as Flex apps did in the past. And be
> very
> > big codebase. Then in few years, WASM should be the new trend and
> making
> > people migrate from JS to WASM. Maybe by that time React could
> handle WASM
> > output correctly or not, but due to fragmentation in libraries and
> code, I
> > think that should not be an easy task. Royale instead since has the
> multi
> > target at its Core should be able to reach that goal better and
> faster with
> > people like you.
> >
> > About Flash API. If we use our own royale based API that can output
> to the
> > platform we want (instead of flash.*, think about in royale.*), I
> think
> > this has more power that bringing the older Flash API, since you're
> writing
> > for a platform that is open and prepared for the future. As Alex
> said,
> > there's others already allowing flash APIs and using Royale
> compiler, so if
> > that's really what you want, you can plan to work between royale and
> those
> > projects. I think those are OpenFL and SpriteFlexJS.
> >
> > I think if you work in Royale for WASM, you can plan to make it
> happen for
> > Royale itself and for other projects depending on it... so more
> users will
> > be interested in that new power feature and will make Royale even
> more
> > interesting and appealing for companies and individuals looking to
> what
> > tech for the future they should use.
> >
> > Maybe is important in this point to see if this new point of view
> can be
> > interesting to you or maybe that's not the way to envision the
> > possibilities for all this stuff.
> >
> > Thanks!
> >
> > Carlos
> >
> >
> >
> > El lun., 21 oct. 2019 a las 8:31, Alex Harui
> (<aha...@adobe.com.invalid>)
> > escribió:
> >
> > > Royale is currently primarily focused on migrating Flex apps,
> which is a
> > > subset of all Flash apps. There are a couple of other non-Apache
> > projects
> > > looking at emulating the Flash APIs. So if your app is pure
> Flash, you
> > > might want to contact those other projects. The main restriction
> is
> > pretty
> > > much number of people on the project. We're busy enough with Flex
> apps
> > and
> > > not worrying about timelines and other Flash things.
> > >
> > > We are not really competing with TS. We use AS3 and MXML because
> that's
> > > what the compiler can parse. We output SWF and JS because that's
> what
> > our
> > > compiler can output. It should be possible to allow TS in Royale
> apps if
> > > that what volunteers want to add to the compiler. We would gladly
> accept
> > > your contribution towards WASM output from the compiler.
> > >
> > > Hopefully all of these efforts can coexist. I think the other
> Flash
> > > emulation projects are using the Royale compiler. Royale can the
> home of
> > > the compiler used by many projects.
> > >
> > > My 2 cents,
> > > -Alex
> > >
> > > On 10/20/19, 6:51 PM, "Jason Huang" <jasonhuang1...@gmail.com>
> wrote:
> > >
> > > Hi,
> > > I understood what you concerned about licensing/copyrights. I
> won't
> > > use the
> > > previous AJC approaching at all, but writing a new compiler
> that
> > > compiles
> > > AS3 codes to wasm format instead. So that would be a totally
> > different
> > > approach than I used to do.
> > >
> > > As Alex mentioned "Royale currently has no intention of
> > > duplicating/emulation the Flash API. We want new Royale apps
> to be
> > > built
> > > on top of components instead of timelines and DisplayObjects".
> For my
> > > understanding, we are just using AS3 as a typed
> > > language for building applications, nothing to do with porting
> > various
> > > AS3
> > > projects. Let's say if a AS3 project is purely developed based
> on
> > Flash
> > > API, in this case if it is willing to use Royale, so it has to
> be
> > > re-written to adjust new APIs provided by Royale, is that
> correct?
> > >
> > > if our goal is providing a brand new tool chain and apis other
> than
> > > helping
> > > existing AS3 projects, I don't see a lot of advantages for
> using AS3
> > > over
> > > Type Script. Type Script has much more users than AS3 dose
> today,
> > plus
> > > Type
> > > Script has its own compiler to wasm already, known as Assembly
> Script
> > > compiler (
> > >
> >
> https://nam04.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fgithub.com%2FAssemblyScript%2Fassemblyscript&data=02%7C01%7Caharui%40adobe.com%7C7dfef54536e841c3c78f08d756a48ec2%7Cfa7b1b5a7b34438794aed2c178decee1%7C0%7C1%7C637073137086661961&sdata=7nNngk8EB%2FupWqgCUKWORhLeJ5i2XXInosUJKikR1%2Bk%3D&reserved=0
> > > ).
> > >
> > > I really wanna put all my efforts in to Royale to make AS3 to
> shine
> > as
> > > other web based languages do, I really wanna know your future
> > > plans/goals/
> > > road map, and to find what exactly should I do with it.
> > >
> > > Cheers
> > > Jason Huang
> > >
> > >
> > > On Mon, Oct 21, 2019 at 6:21 AM Alex Harui
> <aha...@adobe.com.invalid
> > >
> > > wrote:
> > >
> > > > Hi Jason,
> > > >
> > > > Welcome. I hope we find a way to work well with you.
> > > >
> > > > First, a slight correction to what Carlos said about
> copyrights.
> > > Just
> > > > about everything of significance is copyrighted by a company
> or
> > > individual,
> > > > so we're not looking for things "not under a copyright"..
> But
> > there
> > > must
> > > > be an Apache-compatible license to use that copyrighted
> material.
> > > >
> > > > Second, Royale currently has no intention of
> duplicating/emulation
> > > the
> > > > Flash API. IMO, the goal of Royale isn't to propagate Flash
> to
> > other
> > > > platforms, but to create some APIs that can migrate to other
> > > platforms, to
> > > > better future-proof new Royale applications. We've emulated
> a few
> > > Flash
> > > > APIs to help those migrating Flex projects, but we don't
> have a
> > goal
> > > to
> > > > emulate all of them. We want new Royale apps to be built on
> top of
> > > > components instead of timelines and DisplayObjects.
> > > >
> > > > HTH,
> > > > -Alex
> > > >
> > > > On 10/20/19, 9:06 AM, "Carlos Rovira" <
> carlosrov...@apache.org>
> > > wrote:
> > > >
> > > > Hi Jason,
> > > >
> > > > great to have you in the list proposing that plans. Since
> > Royale
> > > is
> > > > multi
> > > > target with current support for SWF and JS, we really
> want to
> > > have
> > > > others
> > > > and users asked many times about WASM support. So WASM
> is maybe
> > > the
> > > > most
> > > > requested and wanted new target in Royale. So, yes, we
> want
> > > > contributors
> > > > that work in WASM target :).
> > > >
> > > > Hope others in the project can give some words here and
> give
> > his
> > > > opinion.
> > > > In the meantime I think the most important thing is to
> > > understand as
> > > > best
> > > > as possible for you how Apache projects work and that is
> very
> > > > different to
> > > > closed source and things driven by companies. It's
> important
> > that
> > > > anything
> > > > you want to contribute is not under any copyright and is
> new
> > > code you
> > > > contribute to the project. Apache is all about open
> source, so
> > > is very
> > > > important that no company or individual owns the code
> and be
> > > always
> > > > available to the public and people can use under Apache
> License
> > > v2.0
> > > > rules.
> > > > I think you should check all you can about how Apache
> works
> > [1].
> > > > Anything
> > > > you need to ask please do here.
> > > >
> > > > The next thing important to this concrete project, Apache
> > > Royale, is to
> > > > understand we're a community were we respect the work of
> others
> > > in the
> > > > community, and we expect the same from new members and
> > > contributors. So
> > > > although code and skills is important, fellowship,
> respect and
> > > other
> > > > social
> > > > things are very important to us.
> > > >
> > > > The way new contributors start working is through Pull
> Request
> > in
> > > > GitHub
> > > > (PRs), interacting in this list (and/or in the users
> list if
> > you
> > > want)
> > > > and
> > > > doing as you consider to help the project going on.As
> well,
> > this
> > > is all
> > > > done freely as you consider and nobody can request
> anything to
> > > you
> > > > since is
> > > > something we all do because we want.
> > > >
> > > > I think to start is important that you try to expose in
> this
> > > list how
> > > > you
> > > > plan to implement WASM support in Royale so the rest of
> the
> > team
> > > can
> > > > guide
> > > > you and discuss things for two reason. a) Guide you to
> > integrate
> > > in the
> > > > best possible way, since you can have in mind some path
> and
> > that
> > > could
> > > > be
> > > > not doable for different reasons: technical, wrong specs
> that
> > > defeats
> > > > some
> > > > important Royale principles, or any other things, b)
> save you
> > > time. We
> > > > don't want you to spend lots of time, and reach a point
> of
> > > merge, and
> > > > then
> > > > others in the team say you is not possible to integrate
> for
> > some
> > > > reason of
> > > > design or compatibility with the global direction of the
> > project.
> > > > So in resume, please try to write and explain here before
> > > starting any
> > > > effort to avoid lose time. This will be by far more
> efficient
> > > and will
> > > > save
> > > > you from any frustration in the future.
> > > >
> > > > Other point is that we expect that you can accept
> critics as
> > > part of
> > > > the
> > > > team work and this is important. Something that can
> happen is
> > > that
> > > > what you
> > > > could have in mind something that can't be done for any
> reason
> > > and it
> > > > may
> > > > be difficult to accept the design of the community. But
> in
> > > Apache all
> > > > things have to happen by consensus. That's the "Apache
> way".
> > > >
> > > > Said all this, I really hope you find your way in our
> community
> > > and
> > > > could
> > > > be the guy that make WASM be a reality in Royale. I know
> the
> > > effort is
> > > > not
> > > > easy at all, maybe is a long run. I really think that if
> you
> > > bring
> > > > something that could make Apache Royale be the next
> front end
> > > > technology
> > > > that get to be massively used since the current ones
> (like
> > React,
> > > > Angular
> > > > or Vue), will never have this kind of power feature. If
> you get
> > > it, I
> > > > really would like to add WASM support to Jewel UI set for
> > > example.
> > > >
> > > > So, definitely, expecting to work with you and help you
> to make
> > > this
> > > > happen
> > > > :)
> > > >
> > > > Best
> > > >
> > > > Carlos
> > > >
> > > > [1]
> > > >
> > >
> >
> https://nam04.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.apache.org&data=02%7C01%7Caharui%40adobe.com%7C7dfef54536e841c3c78f08d756a48ec2%7Cfa7b1b5a7b34438794aed2c178decee1%7C0%7C1%7C637073137086661961&sdata=KwtdsyUSukqosUI%2FKSJKmHPdYPPEWWRc0zDLXYsNV5w%3D&reserved=0
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > El dom., 20 oct. 2019 a las 6:30, Jason Huang (<
> > > > jasonhuang1...@gmail.com>)
> > > > escribió:
> > > >
> > > > > Hi, everyone,
> > > > >
> > > > > I'm Jason Huang, I really like to work with you guys to
> > > improve and
> > > > add new
> > > > > features to Apache Royale.
> > > > >
> > > > > In early 2017, I started a project that compiling AS3
> to JS
> > and
> > > > interacting
> > > > > with a WASM version of basic C++ re-written flash
> runtime
> > > apis. The
> > > > project
> > > > > known as AJC. The initial idea of this project is to
> help
> > > existing
> > > > AS3
> > > > > projects to be able to run on the web without flash
> player
> > > plugin.
> > > > In the
> > > > > end of 2017, the project finally has its own SDK (
> customized
> > > Falcon
> > > > JX
> > > > > compiler, and customized emscripten sdk), a stable
> customized
> > > flash
> > > > develop
> > > > > IDE that has same experiences ( building,
> debugging,etc) as
> > > original
> > > > one
> > > > > that manage original as3 projects. Finally, the only
> thing
> > > that left
> > > > to do
> > > > > is finishing the whole Flash API using c++ that may
> run with
> > > the both
> > > > > environment that browser provided and native platforms
> such
> > as
> > > > Windows,
> > > > > Mac, Linux. In the middle of 2018, I finished most of
> crucial
> > > apis of
> > > > > flash, such as the whole packages of
> flash.display(hardware
> > > > accelerated
> > > > > rendering), flash.display3D, flash.events, flash.net,
> > > etc,.and it
> > > > was able
> > > > > to meet all apis requirements from a commercial AS3 ui
> lib
> > > known as
> > > > flex
> > > > > lite(
> > > >
> > >
> >
> https://nam04.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fgithub.com%2Fflexlite&data=02%7C01%7Caharui%40adobe.com%7C7dfef54536e841c3c78f08d756a48ec2%7Cfa7b1b5a7b34438794aed2c178decee1%7C0%7C1%7C637073137086671952&sdata=tfvMXFrcGQQ0QQmN3B1FekNbL1RAWRQbz%2B%2FrcXi%2FJwg%3D&reserved=0
> > > ),
> > > > I successfully built all examples from
> > > > > that lib to js and communicating with my wasm version
> of
> > flash
> > > apis.
> > > > > Unfortunately, after that bad things happened to me, I
> had to
> > > leave.
> > > > Thus
> > > > > AJC project has been suspended in the middle of 2018.
> The
> > only
> > > > thing left
> > > > > to the public is a fork repo from my original one (
> > > > >
> > > >
> > >
> >
> https://nam04.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fgithub.com%2Fshanewfx%2FAJC-Flash-WebAssembly-Examples&data=02%7C01%7Caharui%40adobe.com%7C7dfef54536e841c3c78f08d756a48ec2%7Cfa7b1b5a7b34438794aed2c178decee1%7C0%7C1%7C637073137086671952&sdata=iFblo9fPcxzzujO5648pFBqvgAd7%2BSP7uIVqNl5%2BDAA%3D&reserved=0
> > > > ).
> > > > >
> > > > > After 17 months, today, I am able to continue this
> project
> > once
> > > > again. But
> > > > > this time I decided to bring it to the public
> entirely. And
> > > working
> > > > with
> > > > > you guys should be more efficient and reliable. After
> all the
> > > things
> > > > I have
> > > > > been doing with AJC, now I have a plan that compile
> AS3 to
> > wasm
> > > > directly,
> > > > > without w/r memories through embind api that much. As
> > > previously all
> > > > as3
> > > > > code being compiled to js first, then those js calling
> every
> > > single
> > > > flash
> > > > > api functions in wasm through memory reading and
> writing,
> > this
> > > is
> > > > very
> > > > > consuming at runtime.
> > > > >
> > > > > I have few brief questions:
> > > > > How you guys think about my plan?
> > > > > What is the state of Royale? is it similar with
> previous
> > > falcon jx
> > > > with
> > > > > more tooling and frameworks added?
> > > > > Did you guys implement a js version of flash apis?
> > > > >
> > > > > Cheers
> > > > > Jason Huang
> > > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > --
> > > > Carlos Rovira
> > > >
> > > >
> > >
> >
> https://nam04.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fabout.me%2Fcarlosrovira&data=02%7C01%7Caharui%40adobe.com%7C7dfef54536e841c3c78f08d756a48ec2%7Cfa7b1b5a7b34438794aed2c178decee1%7C0%7C1%7C637073137086671952&sdata=bAK0unqu%2F44NgApNgoSWsl8y9TJCtpoQbhEh%2BgxmZ8o%3D&reserved=0
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> >
> > --
> > Carlos Rovira
> >
> https://nam04.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fabout.me%2Fcarlosrovira&data=02%7C01%7Caharui%40adobe.com%7C7dfef54536e841c3c78f08d756a48ec2%7Cfa7b1b5a7b34438794aed2c178decee1%7C0%7C1%7C637073137086671952&sdata=bAK0unqu%2F44NgApNgoSWsl8y9TJCtpoQbhEh%2BgxmZ8o%3D&reserved=0
> >
>
>
>
--
Carlos Rovira
http://about.me/carlosrovira
