Hi Alex, Correct, I'm not going away from MXML nor Actionscript at all because I know about the advantages and workflows I love so much. The reality here is that we don't find a lot of AS3 developers anymore though, that is a small concern I have at the moment. :)
On Thu, Sep 27, 2018 at 3:00 AM Alex Harui <[email protected]> wrote: > Hi Fréderic, > > > > I understand you now. Royale should be a good choice as it can be thought > of exactly as you are thinking of it: a lighterweight Flex-like SDK that > can output to JS. > > > > I thought that you were trying to get away from MXML and ActionScript as > well. I think there are so many advantages to working with a structured > language. > > > > Thanks, > > -Alex > > > > *From: *Fréderic Cox <[email protected]> > *Reply-To: *"[email protected]" <[email protected]> > *Date: *Wednesday, September 26, 2018 at 12:56 PM > *To: *"[email protected]" <[email protected]> > *Subject: *Re: Evaluating Apache Royale for the long term > > > > Hi Alex, > > > > Two main reasons: > > > > 1) Being able to have the source compile to JS, since that is what > everyone is doing lately :-) I don't want to exclude my source code from > future projects by not using JS > > > > 2) Flex is more "bloated" than Royale (PAYG), so I think in the long term > it will be better to have more performant code. > > > > Correct me if I'm wrong :-) > > > > On Wed, Sep 26, 2018 at 9:01 PM Alex Harui <[email protected]> wrote: > > Hi Fréderic, > > > > That’s interesting. What is it about Flex that you want to get away from? > > > > I suppose you can load the JS into a webview, but I think you might need > some more glue to have the JS access the Native Extension. But I think > that you can write such glue. Not sure how efficient it will be. > > > > -Alex > > > > *From: *Fréderic Cox <[email protected]> > *Reply-To: *"[email protected]" <[email protected]> > *Date: *Wednesday, September 26, 2018 at 11:39 AM > *To: *"[email protected]" <[email protected]> > *Subject: *Re: Evaluating Apache Royale for the long term > > > > Hi Alex, > > > > I'm trying to go look into a path to get away from Flex rather than AIR. > Most of my apps are desktop based, and the ones that are browser based we > are loading into an AIR container (directly loading the SWF) anyway. > > > > So I guess I can use royale and then load the resulting JS into a webview > in AIR? That way I can still use native extensions? > > > > I spent some time trying Apache Royale today but it will take me many more > days before I really get used and experienced in it but I'll try to help > where I can. Lot's of stuff to learn about it first but it looks really > promising. > > > > On Wed, Sep 26, 2018 at 6:09 PM Alex Harui <[email protected]> wrote: > > Hi Fréderic, > > > > Just so I’m clear, are all of your apps AIR apps and not browser apps? If > so, and you want to get away from AIR, then you will have to decide on how > to run the resulting JS. Royale has support for Cordova and Node. I > haven’t done much with Node, so not sure how much graphical UI you could do > there. I think you can also use Chromium Embedded as well. > > > > You will need to pick your runtime environment first. I will assume the > Browser is not one of your choices, but there may be a way to use it, I > don’t know. I’m not sure there is a 100% equivalent to AIR. I think > you’ll always have to trade-off some feature or build missing capabilities. > > > > Regarding Native Extensions: I believe each runtime environment has a way > to call native code. So, your Native Extensions probably can’t be used > as-is, but the code that actually does the work can probably be re-used to > some extent. For example, if you chose Cordova, you can probably make a > Cordova plugin using some of that Native Extension code. > > > > I think each runtime environment also has a way to launch other apps and > access files. Cordova has a File plugin and we have some examples that use > it. A volunteer could make a more Flex-like wrapper for it. > > > > AMF works in lots of places but there are probably still bugs. I don’t > see any reason it wouldn’t eventually work for your app. > > > > TourDeFlex uses modules. It can load modules now. Royale does not > support unloading modules because the runtime environments don’t make it > easy to remove loaded code. As I get more of TourDeFlex working and other > people get their apps working we will get a better idea of how important > “stuck code” is. Unloading the instances of objects created by module code > will likely be far more important, and that cleanup generally needs to be > done whether the code unloads or not. Also, because Royale doesn’t > currently support embedding, the size of the loaded module may not be as > significant. > > > > There hasn’t been a lot of attention paid to Royale outside of the > browser, so expect to run into more issues, but we do have intentions of > getting it all to work. We expect you and other volunteers to contribute > to making it work by contributing code and patches. If you do enough of > that, you will probably be granted committer status, and then you have much > more control over Royale in the long term. > > > > HTH, > > -Alex > > > > > > *From: *Fréderic Cox <[email protected]> > *Reply-To: *"[email protected]" <[email protected]> > *Date: *Wednesday, September 26, 2018 at 2:31 AM > *To: *"[email protected]" <[email protected]> > *Subject: *Evaluating Apache Royale for the long term > > > > Hi guys, > > > > Finally you have my full attention :-) I am spending the remainder of this > week (at least) to evaluate using Apache Royale for our company's apps. I'm > evaluating wether it is a good course to convert our existing flex apps > (which currently target Mac OSX, Windows and iOS using Adobe AIR). > > > > I have a couple of early questions after installing VSCode and Josh's > AS/MXML extension. > > > > Our apps are pretty complex, using things like: > > > > * Modules (one application uses ModuleLoader quite heavily) > > * Accessing user's hard disk to manipulate files > > * AMFPHP for communication with PHP backend > > * NativeProcess API to convert images using a compiled version of > ImageMagick (so accessing .exe files and mac executable scripts) > > * NativeExtensions > > > > Can this all be used with ApacheRoyale? > > > > Thanks for the information, I'm going to experiment with the examples and > try to convert some parts of apps to see where this is going. > > > > Best regards, > > > > Fréderic > > > > > >
