The first Gnash beta is out
| From: | Bastiaan Jacques <bastiaan-i5cd/pqjGeBg9hUCZPvPmw-AT-public.gmane.org> | |
| To: | gnash-mXXj517/zsQ-AT-public.gmane.org | |
| Subject: | Gnash 0.8.2 released | |
| Date: | Fri, 7 Mar 2008 03:46:41 +0100 (CET) | |
| Message-ID: | <Pine.BSO.4.64.0803070343360.5107@equi.bjacques.org> |
On the 5th of March, Rob Savoye posted the following announcement on
gnu-announce:
The first beta release of Gnash has just been made at version
0.8.2. Gnash is a GPL'd SWF movie player and browser plugin for
Firefox, Mozilla, and Konqueror. Gnash supports many SWF v7
features and ActionScript 2 classes. with growing support for SWF v8
and v9. Gnash also runs on many GNU/Linux distributions, embedded
GNU/Linux, FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD, non x86 processors, and 64 bit
architectures. Ports to Darwin and Windows are in progress for a
future release. The plugin works best with Firefox 1.0.4 or newer, and
should work in any Mozilla based browser. There is also a standalone
player for GNOME or KDE based desktops.
Improvements since the 0.8.1 alpha release are:
* Improved timeline redesign.
* Action execution order fixes.
* Keyboard handling improved [1].
* New classes implemented: System.capabilities (partial), SharedObject,
LocalConnection.
* New opcodes implemented: ActionImplements, Try/Throw.
* Movieclip.beginGradientFill completes drawing API support.
* MovieClip._lockroot support added.
* Implement GET/POST for MovieClip.loadVariables and MovieClip.loadMovie
* Textfield support improved.
* Security: configurable sandbox restricts filesystem access by movies.
* Better support for SWF8.
* Streaming OGG-contained multimedia (e.g. vorbis/theora or
vorbis/dirac), and other free formats.
* OGL and Cairo renderers much improved.
* Improvements of the Framebuffer GUI (hide text messages, support
Linux events system, built-in touchscreen calibration, simple
keyboard support, better architecture support).
* SOLdumper utility for reading SOL files ('flash cookies').
* DumpShm utility finds and dumps Local Connection memory segments.
* Fullscreen display possible.
* Extensions for LIRC and DBus.
* High quality, cross-platform psuedo-randomness using boost random.
* NPAPI (Mozilla) plugin: keyboard events work, navigation and
javascript from within movies.
* Set and save preferences from the GUI (GTK).
* Improved stability and robustness with malformed SWFs.
* New User manual! Rewritten reference manual, brought up to date.
* Many other bugfixes.
Gnash supports the majority of Flash opcodes up to SWF version 7, and
a wide sampling of ActionScript 2 classes for SWF version 8.5. Flash
version 9 and ActionScript 3 support is being worked on. All the
core ones are implemented, and many of the newer ones work, but may be
missing some of their methods. If the browser only displays a blank
window, it is likely because of an unimplemented feature. All
unimplemented opcodes and ActionScript classes and methods print a
warning when using -v with gnash or gprocessor. Using gprocessor -v is
a quick way to see why a movie isn't playing correctly.
You can grab the Gnash sources from ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/gnash/0.8.2,
or from Gnash CVS with the tag "release_0_8_2_final". Binary packages
for Debian or RPM based systems will be available from your GNU/Linux
distribution, and from whatever BSD variant you are using. Experimental
binary packages built by the Gnash team are also available at
http://www.getgnash.org, along with source snapshots. Please
report packaging bugs upstream to your distribution. If you think you
have found a bug in Gnash, then you should file as complete a report
as possible at https://savannah.gnu.org/bugs/?group=gnash. Patches are
always preferred to bug reports, as this is a community project. You
can submit patches at https://savannah.gnu.org/patch/?group=gnash, or
email them to gnash-dev@xxxxxxxx As heavy bug fixing and development
is going on, please make sure your bug still exists in cvs HEAD before
reporting.
Please include the operating system name and version, compiler
version, and which gnash version you are using, in your bug
reports. For bugs in the plugin, please also add the browser and
it's version. Gnash does not support Firefox versions below 1.0.4.
Questions about Gnash or offers of help can go to the developers email
list at gnash-dev@xxxxxxxx
05cac831181be3fb40cbf3c00ab25c0f gnash-0.8.2.tar.bz2
f3bfdceb55609aa42b60d16bf461f4fc gnash-0.8.2.tar.bz2.sig
24dfad0b553254faa06cf1bc1a43fef9 gnash-0.8.2.tar.gz
c4fc710a30f6b63c9aaa13419e32504e gnash-0.8.2.tar.gz.sig
Posted Mar 7, 2008 16:00 UTC (Fri)
by beoba (guest, #16942)
[Link] (2 responses)
Posted Mar 7, 2008 16:46 UTC (Fri)
by Velmont (guest, #46433)
[Link] (1 responses)
I can't see why OS X-people would want FOSS flash though, when they are already using a proprietary OS...
Posted Mar 7, 2008 19:16 UTC (Fri)
by beoba (guest, #16942)
[Link]
Posted Mar 7, 2008 16:28 UTC (Fri)
by louie (guest, #3285)
[Link] (2 responses)
Posted Mar 7, 2008 17:06 UTC (Fri)
by rgmoore (✭ supporter ✭, #75)
[Link]
It should work to show YouTube videos. YouTube compatibility was a major target for 0.8.1, and both the developers claims and my experience say that it was successful. Unless there's been a major regression, 0.8.2 should still work. If 0.8.2 still doesn't work for you, you should file detailed bug reports with the developers; I'm sure that they'll want to know.
Posted Mar 8, 2008 13:28 UTC (Sat)
by and (guest, #2883)
[Link]
Posted Mar 7, 2008 16:50 UTC (Fri)
by JoeBuck (subscriber, #2330)
[Link] (5 responses)
Traditionally, alpha testing is testing by insiders: developers and people internal to the organization that is developing the code, with lots of hand-holding available.
Beta testing is end-user testing, where you're asking non-developers to help test code that you think is nearly ready for final release. No beta announcement should ever contain a line like
"As heavy bug fixing and development is going on, please make sure your bug still exists in cvs HEAD before reporting."
That's because the kind of testers you want for something like Flash have no idea what "cvs HEAD" means. Only developers do, and developer testing is alpha testing. A beta test would require the publication of installable .rpm/.deb packages that non-developers could try out.
I think it would be more accurate to call this the first alpha release. Usable libre Flash is the only think keeping my daughter from being a saint in the church of Emacs. But let's not fool ourselves; there is a very long way to go.
Posted Mar 7, 2008 19:56 UTC (Fri)
by khim (subscriber, #9252)
[Link] (2 responses)
No beta announcement should ever contain a line like "As heavy bug fixing and development is going on, please make sure your bug still exists in cvs HEAD before reporting." Millions of people out there know what the "cvs HEAD" is. Tiny fraction of them are gnash developers. May be one per thousand but probably less. How the heck will you call version which is ready to be tested by someone who is a software engineer but not developer of gnash? This is not alpha - people outside of usual circle (potentially millions) are invited. I'd say it's kind of private beta: version not yet intended for general public, but good enough to be tested by millions. The fact that selection is by knowledge and not by some other random characteristic is irrelevant. P.S. Not so long ago the fact that anyone who's not familiar with gcc or cvs will even try to use Linux was laughable. Times are changing but IMNSHO it's still not too much to ask from average Linux beta-tester: Jor Averages who don't know about cvs can wait for a later beta or a release...
Posted Mar 7, 2008 20:02 UTC (Fri)
by JoeBuck (subscriber, #2330)
[Link]
Cloning Flash is a very tough job, and the people that take it on have my respect. But there's a danger in over-promising; people try it out and then go away.
Posted Mar 7, 2008 21:15 UTC (Fri)
by jhoger (guest, #33302)
[Link]
Posted Mar 7, 2008 20:32 UTC (Fri)
by debacle (subscriber, #7114)
[Link]
Posted Mar 7, 2008 21:36 UTC (Fri)
by jwb (guest, #15467)
[Link]
Posted Mar 8, 2008 4:44 UTC (Sat)
by tajyrink (subscriber, #2750)
[Link]
Posted Mar 8, 2008 12:30 UTC (Sat)
by sylware (guest, #35259)
[Link] (7 responses)
There is also swfdec. It does work fine for many flash based video players on 32 bits systems. It has some issues with 64 bits systems (video playback is not smooth). One of the main difference between swfdec and gnash: gnash is a C++ bloat/mess based on boost C++ library and swfdef is a clean C lib...
Posted Mar 9, 2008 0:32 UTC (Sun)
by aya (guest, #19767)
[Link] (6 responses)
Posted Mar 9, 2008 19:43 UTC (Sun)
by nix (subscriber, #2304)
[Link] (4 responses)
Posted Mar 9, 2008 20:43 UTC (Sun)
by sylware (guest, #35259)
[Link] (3 responses)
Posted Mar 9, 2008 21:28 UTC (Sun)
by nix (subscriber, #2304)
[Link] (2 responses)
Posted Mar 9, 2008 21:54 UTC (Sun)
by sylware (guest, #35259)
[Link] (1 responses)
Posted Mar 11, 2008 8:37 UTC (Tue)
by nix (subscriber, #2304)
[Link]
Posted Mar 9, 2008 20:39 UTC (Sun)
by sylware (guest, #35259)
[Link]
The first Gnash beta is out
Does it build on OSX? Not seeing any builds on the site.
The first Gnash beta is out
Ports to Darwin and Windows are in progress for a future release.
The first Gnash beta is out
Wouldn't that argument also apply to the Windows build?
I'm on PPC, therefore Adobe's version runs about as fast as Garfield.
The first Gnash beta is out
But does it actually work on youtube these days? I've been told repeatedly that it does, and
every time I try it, it still doesn't work. :/
The first Gnash beta is out
The first Gnash beta is out
For me, 0.8.1 did play youtube videos to a certain extend, although I had
some problems wrt CPU usage (frames got dropped) and display quality
(some weired black vertical stripes). Also the kpart didn't work for me,
so I couldn't use it in konqueror but only for firefox...
The folks behind this announcement have no idea what "beta" means.
It is not a beta
Why not?
I'm all for asking for a larger tester community. I still don't think that they've reached the level of stability that the word "beta" normally indicates.
Why not?
Why not?
Two terms I've heard used for that is "engineering beta" or "internal beta." Good enough for
engineers other than the original developers, but not users.
-- John.
It is not a beta
Hm, I used to know what CVS HEAD was, but I can't remember. Wasn't it sth. like SVN trunk? Or,
no, well, I'm confused about relatively new projects using CVS.
It is not a beta
Even hard-core hackers will be put off by the requirement to test the CVS head before
reporting a bug. Gnash developers should treat all bug reports equally unless they know that
a commit later than the last release has likely fixed the problem.
The first Gnash beta is out
I'd love if someone figured out what's wrong with my distros and Gnash's video support :)
0.8.1 usually worked flawlessly, now with 0.8.2 only random (if any) Youtube flicks work. If I
give totem-gstreamer the direct url from Gnash debug output, movie plays flawlessly, but with
Gnash I only get the "replay / share" screen, not the video itself.
I know that Youtube works without problems for many people with Gnash, but if there are any
who share the pain, please try to see if you can get anything out of the debug output.
The first Gnash beta is out
The first Gnash beta is out
Are you saying, in 2008, that an end-user application is inherently worse than an alternative
because it's implemented in C++?
The first Gnash beta is out
I hope he doesn't use Firefox, Konqueror, or any WebKit or Gecko-based
browser then.
The first Gnash beta is out
Indeed, I quite dislike the use of C++ for gecko. We do not live in a perfect world. AFAIK,
Spidermonkey is plain C, then nothing is lost yet. :)
The first Gnash beta is out
The point is, what flaw can you point at in Gecko or Konqueror *that is
attributable to the use of C++ in those applications*? Gecko in particular
has lots of uglinesses (lots of XPCOM for one), but a lot of that was
because of *restrictions* on what C++ features could be used, requiring
reimplementations of huge heaps of what the language already does, only
worse: if the whole language had been usable from the start, Gecko would
likely have eliminated a lot of those uglinesses.
If you can't point at any systematic flaws in either of these apps
(preferably similar flaws), then your criticism is groundless. (I'm afraid
that from your comments, it seems you're a simplicity-for-the-sake-of-it
man who doesn't understand that sometimes driving complexity into the
language enables you to make the things built atop that language simpler.)
(Not that I like C++ much either, mostly because the syntax of a lot of
stuff related to templates and the STL is just icky. Lovely *ideas*,
horrible *horrible* syntax. But I don't think that using C++ necessarily
makes a program bad.)
The first Gnash beta is out
>I'm afraid that from your comments, it seems you're a simplicity-for-the-
>sake-of-it man who doesn't understand that sometimes driving complexity >into the language
enables you to make the things built atop that language >simpler.)
That's schoolar sighted. In the reality, coding clean object-oriented software is *hard*: with
object-oriented semantic hardwired directly into the syntax, coders tend to produce a kind of
"object-orientish" mixture, just for the sake to be "object-oriented".
That's from the code I read and my experience.
BTW, if you dislike the STL... have a look at the boost lib... gnash uses it...
The first Gnash beta is out
Um, I *like* the STL. I dislike its *syntax*. I can't even tell if you
consider Boost better than the STL, or worse...
(Anyway, it's plain to me that you're not reading anything here clearly,
so I'll stop trying to talk to you.)
The first Gnash beta is out
Nope, I just read the code from both apps.
From what I can see is that object-oriented languages lead quite easily to brain damaged
design for applications... I would even say faster and easier than C. "Easier is the path to
the dark side" said once a wise ET.
Nethertheless, it does exist very clean C++ applications. IMHO they are quite harder to code.