Open Source Flash101 Gaurav Saxena For Virginia Marti College of Arts and Design

Open Source Flash 101OSFlash.org
G Saxena
For Virginia Marti College of Arts and Design
09/09/2008

Flash
Create:
Web animations (www.flinch.com)
Entire website (www.hyundaigenesis.com)
Web applications (www.flashearth.com)
Versions: Macromedia MX, Adobe Flash 8, CS3

Flash
Become a director
Use:
Timeline
Stage
Objects
Controls
Tell a story

Open Source
Free Redistribution
Source Code
Derived Works
Integrity of Author’s Source code
No discrimination against persons or groups
No discrimination against fields of endeavor
Distribution of license
License must not be Specific to a Product
License must not restrict other software
License must be technology neutral
Share
Knowledge
Freely

In Context
Source code used to be shared:
Binary FLA files
ActionScript classes
2004: MTASC2 (Motion-Twin ActionScript Compiler) released, kicks off Flash IDE development projects
Swfmill: XML to SWF compiler; allows addition of assets
AMES: Open Source development stack for Flash Platform
ASDT + Apache + MTASC + Eclipse+ Swfmill
ASDT: ActionScriptDevelopment Tool
Language Intelligence; overcame Flash IDE’s limitation

In Context
FDT: Flash Development Tool (commercial) completed and provides healthy competition to Adobe’s Flex team
FlashDevelop: Open Source alternative
Frameworks developed:
Arp
Cairngorm
PureMVC
Frameworks allow developers to:
work in teams
Build scalable solutions
Independent of open source tools, Flash IDE or Flex

In Context
OSFlash.org is created to incubate other projects:
Provides a hub for open source developers to meet, plan and build projects
Exciting technologies for the Flash Platform are created:
Papervision 3D: 3D library for Flash
Red 5: Open Source Server to handle audio, video and real-time shared objects
SWX: Native data format for the Flash Platform
Flex 3
Flex SDK
Flex Compilers
State-of-the-art is permanently pushed further
Google App Engine is created

Summary
With increasing opportunities for creating Rich Internet Applications immensely interactive websites can be realized.
These websites will enable useful interactions and challenge the future of online computing.

References
OSFlash
OSFlash Mailing List
The GAE SWF Project
Google App Engine
Papervision3D
Red5
SWFAddress
PyAMF
Fuse
GoASAP
SWX
AMFPHP
MTASC
swfmill
AMES
FlashDevelop
ASDT
PureMVC
Arp
Cairngorm

Questions ?
Annotate.