Re: [swfmill] swfmill needs your help.
Alright, Thank you Dan. I will get started on some documentation then. One of the interesting things I've discovered while using swfmill that needs documentation is the nesting of tags. I could create clips inside of clips, place those clips or leave them for later. So yes there is room for extension to Mark's guide which was my main point of reference followed by a lot of trial and error. I'm still no swfmill expert. Even with the simple dialect. I'm not a bad writer though. If anyone has any specific examples they like to share of adding sound(mp3) and/or video to a clip using swfmill that they'd allow me to study and include in the docs please send the file to me off list. Also, if anyone has any masks, gradients, or vector drawing clips I'd like to see them as well. Also, has anyone every tried a menu with swfmill? I'd give proper credit to anyone sharing their source, but it would save me a lot of time if I could just study something known to work. Hopefully there are some kind souls on here willing to share. It would also be useful to see some other Makefile or build.xml as a reference. Thanks. * daniel fischer <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Hey Jon, > > good to hear you're still in. Basically, what kind of documentation you'd > want to write is of course up to you- anything helps. What seems most > important to me, though, is geting a comprehensive reference to the > swfml-simple functionality, with examples. Very much like Mark's guide or the > osflash page (but complete). The OSFlash page also misses some basic > introduction into swfmill's function as a XSLT processor, the difference > between lowlevel and simple dialects, etc.. > > > My offer still stands for documentation. I need someone to first tell > > me what type of documentation I'm drafting as I'm incapable of deciding. > > As for the "hacks", that would of course be interesting too, but to me they > have a much lower priority-- as anyone capable of creating a > swfmill-XSLT-based hack will also have the competence to dig into it's > function from what little info there is... > > > Thanks also to Marc and Brian for the heads-up and success report. I've > received another "0.2.11.22 works ok on my ~350 SWFs" off-list, so that makes > three-- two more success reports to go before i'm willing to release (Note > that if swfmill receives more fixes, we'll have to test again-- so be quick). > > -dan > > > -- > http://0xDF.com/ > http://iterative.org/ > > ___ > swfmill mailing list > swfmill@osflash.org > http://osflash.org/mailman/listinfo/swfmill_osflash.org -- Jon Molesa [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ swfmill mailing list swfmill@osflash.org http://osflash.org/mailman/listinfo/swfmill_osflash.org
Re: [swfmill] swfmill needs your help.
"Hudson Ansley" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> (on Fri, 12 Jan 2007 13:26:40 -0500): > I tested 0.2.11.22 on my problem cases (not the made up ones, but the > real ones) and had no problems (yay!). Great, thanks Hudson. That makes four. Now, who's going to contribute the final success report? If possible, someone who made a direct switch from 0.2.11[.0] to .22. -dan -- http://0xDF.com/ http://iterative.org/ ___ swfmill mailing list swfmill@osflash.org http://osflash.org/mailman/listinfo/swfmill_osflash.org
Re: [swfmill] swfmill needs your help.
> * test the latest prerelease (0.2.11.22), and *report if it works*. I tested 0.2.11.22 on my problem cases (not the made up ones, but the real ones) and had no problems (yay!). Of course, as you noted, it is still choking on that odd color thing, but I have not actually encountered a swf with that type of issue in the wild Regards, Hudson ___ swfmill mailing list swfmill@osflash.org http://osflash.org/mailman/listinfo/swfmill_osflash.org
Re: [swfmill] swfmill needs your help.
Hey Jon, good to hear you're still in. Basically, what kind of documentation you'd want to write is of course up to you- anything helps. What seems most important to me, though, is geting a comprehensive reference to the swfml-simple functionality, with examples. Very much like Mark's guide or the osflash page (but complete). The OSFlash page also misses some basic introduction into swfmill's function as a XSLT processor, the difference between lowlevel and simple dialects, etc.. > My offer still stands for documentation. I need someone to first tell > me what type of documentation I'm drafting as I'm incapable of deciding. As for the "hacks", that would of course be interesting too, but to me they have a much lower priority-- as anyone capable of creating a swfmill-XSLT-based hack will also have the competence to dig into it's function from what little info there is... Thanks also to Marc and Brian for the heads-up and success report. I've received another "0.2.11.22 works ok on my ~350 SWFs" off-list, so that makes three-- two more success reports to go before i'm willing to release (Note that if swfmill receives more fixes, we'll have to test again-- so be quick). -dan -- http://0xDF.com/ http://iterative.org/ ___ swfmill mailing list swfmill@osflash.org http://osflash.org/mailman/listinfo/swfmill_osflash.org
Re: [swfmill] swfmill needs your help.
Hey guys, it good to see some discussion open up again. I'm not sure how long these folks have been members of the list. It's been a while back now but I did offer to help with documentation as well as asking if anyone would be interested in and IDE. I'd love to put that together as well. I asked for suggestions and ideas, and any interested party to contact me. I've heard from no one, on this list or off. I just assumed that all users of swfmill were far more advanced in their understand than myself and were not interested in any documentation. If there is interest, my offers still stand. I'm not sure the best way to get started on the documentation as my interests with swfmill swing one of two directions. In one since I'd love to document all the functional features of swfmill. The tricks of the trade if you will. The neat work arounds. These things would be fun. Then the other side of me wants to document how swfmill works. The belly of the beast?? So I'm not quite sure while would be the most useful type of documentation. Users, developer, or hacks? All would be interesting from my point of view. The tool is great and works well from my point of view. It does it's job dutifully. What's needed now are those that understand how to push it with XSL and other tools to speak up. This kind of stuff could go in a hacks document. My offer still stands for documentation. I need someone to first tell me what type of documentation I'm drafting as I'm incapable of deciding. ;-) And if anyone has any tips, tricks, how-to's, extensions or what not please send those. I'd love to read them and would give proper citation. On the IDE front, FlashDevelop is good for developers. What's needed is an opensource IDE similar in nature to the Flash IDE of Flash MX. That would allow for the visual creation and animation aspect of flash. Some work began on a project call Flash4Linux that become UIRA. It has an awesome looking IDE, very much like Flash. I've tried several times to get them interested in swfmill, or visa-versa. I don't know c/c++ so I can't write the code for UIRA to incorporate swfmill. These are my thoughts. Dan you've made an excellent tool. Don't give up on the idea that the all you labor will not bear fruit. This is still a very young seed that needs time to grow. I agree that it needs a larger community. [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ swfmill mailing list swfmill@osflash.org http://osflash.org/mailman/listinfo/swfmill_osflash.org
Re: [swfmill] swfmill needs your help.
I am not attempting to get off topic here, but I just thought I would mention to those interested in an IDE based on swfmill and mtasc the existence of flashdevelop. I believe that it is open source, and written in c# (unfortunately not cross platform). It has integration for both the mtasc/swfmill combo as well as using the new Adobe command line tools for flex2 development. Dan Shryock On 1/9/07, Marc Reichelt <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Hi Dan, > > I'm using swfmill since around a year now, and I'm using it for two > projects. One that I do for university is nearly finished, and it's nice > to see how great the tools MTASC and swfmill work together. > The biggest job is done by MTASC here (I'm not using any complex > functions of swfmill right now, but big ActionScript 2.0 files), but as > I need some complex movie clips from other *.swf Files (which do only > work since 0.2.11.15 or so) I'm fixed to use the latest prereleases. > > The project does work with 0.2.11.22 as it should, no problems here. > > Finally, because I have a valid Flash MX license (yes, I really spent > money on it), I could create some *.swf files containing complex movie > clips and test if they can be imported by swfmill. > > > [...] > > So. I learned a lesson: Dont do open-source for the money. > > It took me a long time to create a senseful connection between open > source and money. The question I constantly asked myself was: > "How can projects like Apache, Linux, Mozilla etc. can be so much better > than proprietary products? The companies spent much more money on > proprietary products, so how can this be?" > > The final answer I found a few months ago was that my question was > wrong: The big open source projects earn much more money than > proprietary ones - the only difference here is that _many_ companies > (and private persons) spend a small amount of money and working time > (which is money!) on open source projects. Overall there is more money > spent on big open source projects. > > The conclusion is: Open Source projects work well if there is a big > community to support them. > > That means that swfmill has to be used more often in order to earn more > money with it. I don't think that there will be many donations more, but > at least if swfmill is used more often companies will realise that they > need additional functions, and they need a person that will implement > those functions for them. And who is better on swfmill: Is it a > programmer that has to spend much time to learn how swfmill works until > he can modify it, or is it you, Dan? ;) > > That's how open source and money work together. > > > * test the latest prerelease (0.2.11.22), and *report if it works*. As the > > useOutlines issue showed, my fear of introducing regressions is not > > completely psychological. I want to see at least about 5 reports of "i use > > swfmill in this-or-that-context, and 0.2.11.22 works flawless" before > > finally going 0.2.12. If you want to help more, start organizing the > > construction of an extended set of simple test cases for automatic > > regression tests. > > As I wrote above, 0.2.11.22 works fine here. > > > * swfmill needs documentation. there is a lot floating around, but it > > needs a loving hand of collecting and organizing it into something like a > > manual. Please, someone, step forward and take on this issue. It could be > > one weekend of work, but would make an incredible difference and you could > > be certain of the thanks of many a newbie. > > I'm interested in it, but right now I have to work hard in university. > What would be the best method for the documentation? A HTML page? I > would appreciate that one. :) > > > when and if swfmill gets a release and some better docs, it is back on the > > road to being a stable tool. is that in your interest? > > Yes, of course. Or what did you expect? ;) > I won't wait for the documentation to be done before the release of > 0.2.12 - just release it, the documentation will be done afterwards. > > I'm really interested in the idea of Brian who noticed that an IDE would > be useful. As you wrote, swfmill is really stable now - why not creating > an IDE (e.g. written in Java, which will be open-sourced in a few weeks) > that uses MTASC for ActionScript code and swfmill to glue all together? > I'm thinking of an IDE that looks like the official IDE by Adobe. > > That would have many advantages: > - There is an IDE for users who don't like commandline tools > - The community is getting bigger (bigger community => more money) > - The development of swfmill and MTASC continues, as they are a > requirement for the IDE > > I'm not the one to start this IDE because I have some other projects > which are waiting to be developed for a long time, but IMHO it's a great > idea. > > > Regards > > Marc Reichelt || http://www.marcreichelt.de/ > > PS: Sorry for the long mail and wasting your time. ;) > >
Re: [swfmill] swfmill needs your help.
Hi Dan, I'm using swfmill since around a year now, and I'm using it for two projects. One that I do for university is nearly finished, and it's nice to see how great the tools MTASC and swfmill work together. The biggest job is done by MTASC here (I'm not using any complex functions of swfmill right now, but big ActionScript 2.0 files), but as I need some complex movie clips from other *.swf Files (which do only work since 0.2.11.15 or so) I'm fixed to use the latest prereleases. The project does work with 0.2.11.22 as it should, no problems here. Finally, because I have a valid Flash MX license (yes, I really spent money on it), I could create some *.swf files containing complex movie clips and test if they can be imported by swfmill. > [...] > So. I learned a lesson: Dont do open-source for the money. It took me a long time to create a senseful connection between open source and money. The question I constantly asked myself was: "How can projects like Apache, Linux, Mozilla etc. can be so much better than proprietary products? The companies spent much more money on proprietary products, so how can this be?" The final answer I found a few months ago was that my question was wrong: The big open source projects earn much more money than proprietary ones - the only difference here is that _many_ companies (and private persons) spend a small amount of money and working time (which is money!) on open source projects. Overall there is more money spent on big open source projects. The conclusion is: Open Source projects work well if there is a big community to support them. That means that swfmill has to be used more often in order to earn more money with it. I don't think that there will be many donations more, but at least if swfmill is used more often companies will realise that they need additional functions, and they need a person that will implement those functions for them. And who is better on swfmill: Is it a programmer that has to spend much time to learn how swfmill works until he can modify it, or is it you, Dan? ;) That's how open source and money work together. > * test the latest prerelease (0.2.11.22), and *report if it works*. As the > useOutlines issue showed, my fear of introducing regressions is not > completely psychological. I want to see at least about 5 reports of "i use > swfmill in this-or-that-context, and 0.2.11.22 works flawless" before finally > going 0.2.12. If you want to help more, start organizing the construction of > an extended set of simple test cases for automatic regression tests. As I wrote above, 0.2.11.22 works fine here. > * swfmill needs documentation. there is a lot floating around, but it needs > a loving hand of collecting and organizing it into something like a manual. > Please, someone, step forward and take on this issue. It could be one weekend > of work, but would make an incredible difference and you could be certain of > the thanks of many a newbie. I'm interested in it, but right now I have to work hard in university. What would be the best method for the documentation? A HTML page? I would appreciate that one. :) > when and if swfmill gets a release and some better docs, it is back on the > road to being a stable tool. is that in your interest? Yes, of course. Or what did you expect? ;) I won't wait for the documentation to be done before the release of 0.2.12 - just release it, the documentation will be done afterwards. I'm really interested in the idea of Brian who noticed that an IDE would be useful. As you wrote, swfmill is really stable now - why not creating an IDE (e.g. written in Java, which will be open-sourced in a few weeks) that uses MTASC for ActionScript code and swfmill to glue all together? I'm thinking of an IDE that looks like the official IDE by Adobe. That would have many advantages: - There is an IDE for users who don't like commandline tools - The community is getting bigger (bigger community => more money) - The development of swfmill and MTASC continues, as they are a requirement for the IDE I'm not the one to start this IDE because I have some other projects which are waiting to be developed for a long time, but IMHO it's a great idea. Regards Marc Reichelt || http://www.marcreichelt.de/ PS: Sorry for the long mail and wasting your time. ;) ___ swfmill mailing list swfmill@osflash.org http://osflash.org/mailman/listinfo/swfmill_osflash.org
Re: [swfmill] swfmill needs your help.
Hi, Dan. As a fellow developer, I sympathize with your thoughts below. Below, it's clear to me that you want the best for swfmill and want to know exactly what your users want from it. I've been lurking here for a while now, ever since reading something about swf being an Adobe Flash alternative. I admit my knowledge of swfmill is introductory at best, but I wanted to respond to you and let you know what this outsider's first impressions are. Basically, it comes down to this: I would like to see an IDE. Is there any chance of that happening? My personal use for swf files is limited to banner-type projects, and I have limited time to devote to doing this type of work, as the majority of my time is spent developing applications. I don't know if that's on the swfmill agenda, but an IDE that automates some tasks would just be wonderful. Take care, Brian -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of daniel fischer Sent: Tuesday, January 09, 2007 1:39 PM To: swfmill@osflash.org Subject: [swfmill] swfmill needs your help. Dear swfmill-Community, as you all know, swfmill hasn't seen a release in all of 2006. That is a very bad thing, for two major reasons: * People that dont track the prereleases (probably the majority of users) don't profit from all the enhancements and fixes. * People start thinking swfmill is dead- while it's just stabilizing. I'd say the causes for this are also two: * swfmill is somewhere near feature-complete: it actually does what it was designed to (mainly importing assets), it does so ok, and there's little reason to change it. a few corner cases break swfmill and surely there are more bugs to be found, Adobe will come up with new versions and tags all the time (the new vm bytecodes are still unsupported), SVG import could suck less, etc. pp., but (as i think most people on this list can confirm) for most of it's "traditional" use cases it should work just fine. * my personal involvement has dropped considerably. please allow me one paragraph of lamenting: i've spent somewhere near 1k unpaid hours on swfmill. around a year ago i've tried earning some money with swfmill- one company offered to pay me 500E/month for a while to continue the (at that time, pretty fast) pace of swfmill development (and feature their logo). sadly, the guy that initiated the idea (and lobbied his company) left the corp before the paperwork was done, so it never happened. i've received two "donations" coupled to specific support/development questions, 100EUR and 100USD respectively, and one "real" (uncoupled) donation weighting 10EUR. I live cheap for german standards, but need (that is, for food and shelter) about double that amount a month. The two bigger donations took about a week of focus each. The idea was to pay some of the swfmill development time by cashing in on the increased "image". Do the maths. Now stop the lamenting! I found well-paid contract work early last year that still pays my life, so i really cannot complain. It wasnt swfmill-(or even flash-)related at all, and of course the code now belongs to the customer, and it's hopeless to lobby him into opensourcing it in any way. But after, i could focus away from the money onto other projects. As swfmill is "done" (see above), now there is (as many of you likely know) xinf. So. I learned a lesson: Dont do open-source for the money. The other lesson i learned with swfmill, though, is: open-source might just work. Many of you have contributed, in some way or the other, even if only by generating testcases for bugs. Steve's involvement shows that it's possible for an outsider to gain a deep-enough understanding of swfmill to be able to extend it to a new flash version (and fix other stuff). So swfmill surely got a lot better by being open. Of course, i also shouldn't neglect that probably nobody would know about swfmill today if it wasn't free (at least as in beer). So much for the past, now let's think about swfmill's future. Which is in *your* hands, as my involvement will rather continue to decline than increase. Now, it's probably not yet time to look for a new maintainer, but i do need some help: * test the latest prerelease (0.2.11.22), and *report if it works*. As the useOutlines issue showed, my fear of introducing regressions is not completely psychological. I want to see at least about 5 reports of "i use swfmill in this-or-that-context, and 0.2.11.22 works flawless" before finally going 0.2.12. If you want to help more, start organizing the construction of an extended set of simple test cases for automatic regression tests. * swfmill needs documentation. there is a lot floating around, but it needs a loving hand of collecting and organizing it into something like a manual. Please, someone, step forward and take on this issue. It could be one weekend of work, but would make an incredible difference and you could be certain of the thanks of many a newbie. * (ob
