The Shumway open SWF runtime project
Mozilla’s mission is to advance the Open Web. We believe that we can offer a positive experience if we provide support for the SWF format that is still used on many web sites, especially on mobile devices where the Adobe Flash Player is not available." Source is available on Github.
Posted Nov 13, 2012 20:05 UTC (Tue)
by juliank (guest, #45896)
[Link] (1 responses)
Posted Nov 13, 2012 21:45 UTC (Tue)
by kripkenstein (guest, #43281)
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Posted Nov 13, 2012 22:02 UTC (Tue)
by smurf (subscriber, #17840)
[Link] (15 responses)
What's the difference?
Posted Nov 13, 2012 22:17 UTC (Tue)
by JoeBuck (subscriber, #2330)
[Link] (2 responses)
Posted Nov 13, 2012 22:43 UTC (Tue)
by corbet (editor, #1)
[Link] (1 responses)
Posted Nov 14, 2012 12:41 UTC (Wed)
by hthoma (subscriber, #4743)
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Posted Nov 13, 2012 22:19 UTC (Tue)
by kripkenstein (guest, #43281)
[Link] (8 responses)
Posted Nov 13, 2012 22:21 UTC (Tue)
by Company (guest, #57006)
[Link] (7 responses)
Posted Nov 13, 2012 22:25 UTC (Tue)
by kripkenstein (guest, #43281)
[Link] (6 responses)
JS JITS *are* in fact among the fastest in dynamic languages, matched only by LuaJIT.
If Java or Python would JIT into JS, thereby reusing the JS JIT, then they could be very fast in the browser too. I've been wanting to do that exact project with PyPy (compile PyPy C code using Emscripten, add a JS JIT backend), am still hoping to interest the PyPy devs in it some day.
For Flash specifically though, the language is very close to JS. JITing into JS there is simpler than the alternatives, and should give good results. Would be interesting to compare to the AS engines in the other FOSS Flash implementations.
Posted Nov 13, 2012 22:41 UTC (Tue)
by khim (subscriber, #9252)
[Link]
May be Python, but most definitely not Java. Java programs are often slower but that because Java libraries have so many useless levels of indirection, but Java JITs are much faster then JS ones. Translation to JS JIT can not fix broken libraries design.
Posted Nov 13, 2012 23:41 UTC (Tue)
by ssmith32 (subscriber, #72404)
[Link] (2 responses)
Posted Nov 14, 2012 10:58 UTC (Wed)
by eru (subscriber, #2753)
[Link] (1 responses)
Casual games on the Web. Very popular. My kid divides his game time pretty evenly between those, and Wii. Every TV series for youngsters seems to have Flash games on their web site. Interestingly, some involve a "game builder" where the user can construct game fields from components, then test play and share them. So not they are not always totally mindlessly passivating.
Must check how well Shumway and other free alternatives deal with these nowadays. I did try some Gnash version on the one of the simpler ones years ago, and the result was garbage.
Posted Nov 14, 2012 11:29 UTC (Wed)
by hummassa (subscriber, #307)
[Link]
Seconded. My 6yo daughter would benefit too -- tho flashplugin-installer + chrome has not been the pain in the back that they once were. But I agree wholeheartedly that those games are very good testing ground for new swf runtimes...
Posted Nov 20, 2012 1:01 UTC (Tue)
by philh (subscriber, #14797)
[Link] (1 responses)
I think you may be looking for "pyjamas": http://pyjs.org/
Posted Nov 20, 2012 11:55 UTC (Tue)
by kripkenstein (guest, #43281)
[Link]
Posted Nov 13, 2012 22:20 UTC (Tue)
by proski (subscriber, #104)
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Posted Nov 14, 2012 6:50 UTC (Wed)
by mgedmin (subscriber, #34497)
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Posted Nov 14, 2012 17:42 UTC (Wed)
by smurf (subscriber, #17840)
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Of course. My bad.
Posted Nov 14, 2012 11:40 UTC (Wed)
by coriordan (guest, #7544)
[Link] (8 responses)
That's what they're doing now, right? What changed?
Might they now consider giving Gnash a little help?
Posted Nov 14, 2012 14:13 UTC (Wed)
by gerv (guest, #3376)
[Link] (7 responses)
"They always refused to give financial help to Gnash and other free SWF players on the grounds that they don't want to support closed formats." I don't remember that ever being our position; do you have evidentiary support? Either way, now we've started our own Flash reimplementation project, it would be rather an odd time to start funding someone else's... Gerv
Posted Nov 14, 2012 15:18 UTC (Wed)
by coriordan (guest, #7544)
[Link] (6 responses)
If I'm wrong (which is possible), then what did stop Moz Foundation from helping the struggling SWF projects? Did they want to help, but got no requests and didn't see the funding pleas? Or did the idea of SWF support simply never come up?
(I'm not demonising the Moz Foundation, but if no one can provide a link to evidence, then we have to look at who's version fits the context.)
Posted Nov 14, 2012 16:40 UTC (Wed)
by gerv (guest, #3376)
[Link] (5 responses)
That quote focusses more on the lack of an open process than the lack of an open format, but let's not split hairs. Your original post was mostly right. I'd not read the above before.
I never saw a formal funding proposal from Gnash, though.
I do remember some discussions in the last couple of years about us bundling Flash like Chrome does. That has the obvious "it's not open source" issues. Gnash got mentioned in that context; I think people were concerned that the Gnash implementation wasn't complete enough and it would just end up being a massive bug and time sink if we made it the default in Firefox for the whole world. I guess "fund it" would have been a follow-on possibility from that line of argument but I didn't see it raised.
We've taken a lot of pain from Flash in one way or another (hangs, crashes, security issues). The Flash problem has no good, simple solutions. :-|
Gerv
Posted Nov 15, 2012 0:49 UTC (Thu)
by roc (subscriber, #30627)
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Posted Nov 15, 2012 10:41 UTC (Thu)
by coriordan (guest, #7544)
[Link]
It's declining, but change is slow (and time makes a return possible).
For some things, such as children's 2D games and TV channel websites, Flash seems still as dominant as ever. I simply ignore those sites, but my friends don't.
Flash is less necessary now than it was in 2005 (when Gnash began), but it would still be very good to have a free software Flash player.
Posted Nov 15, 2012 10:51 UTC (Thu)
by coriordan (guest, #7544)
[Link] (2 responses)
Since Moz Foundation has now decided to put resources into an SWF player, one way to find good people to work on the project would be to contact the projects that previously spent years doing exactly that.
Just an idea.
Posted Nov 15, 2012 11:57 UTC (Thu)
by gerv (guest, #3376)
[Link] (1 responses)
Gerv
Posted Nov 15, 2012 14:09 UTC (Thu)
by coriordan (guest, #7544)
[Link]
Posted Nov 15, 2012 17:51 UTC (Thu)
by DonDiego (guest, #24141)
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Posted Nov 15, 2012 18:30 UTC (Thu)
by bjartur (guest, #67801)
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Nobody is writing a movie decoder in JavaScript. At least not for Mozilla.
https://github.com/mozilla/shumway/blob/master/src/flash/media/Video.js
Posted Nov 16, 2012 12:02 UTC (Fri)
by coriordan (guest, #7544)
[Link]
If Shumway can get 2D games and websites that have SWF buttons and menus working, then it's a big help and no FLV or MP3 is required.
(I don't have an easy solution for the video formats, but I'm reluctant to start by saying "Let's give up".)
The Shumway open SWF runtime project
The Shumway open SWF runtime project
The Shumway open SWF runtime project
Find out in the next episode of "the grumpy editor's guide to free Flash implementations" (hint, hint)
The Shumway open SWF runtime project
There's lightspark too.
Gnash seems pretty moribund at the moment. Lightspark shows occasional signs of life, but doesn't seem to be advancing all that quickly. Perhaps Shumway will actually reach a point of widespread utility and adoption, I don't know. Will keep an eye on it...
The Shumway open SWF runtime project
The Shumway open SWF runtime project
The Shumway open SWF runtime project
The Shumway open SWF runtime project
The Shumway open SWF runtime project
The Shumway open SWF runtime project
If Java or Python would JIT into JS, thereby reusing the JS JIT, then they could be very fast in the browser too.
The Shumway open SWF runtime project
Are there really any other good uses for it? ;)
Are there really any other good uses for it? ;)
killer app: games
killer app: games
The Shumway open SWF runtime project
(although, not sure about the JIT bit of that, but it does include a python to JavaScript compiler, so would perhaps be a start)
The Shumway open SWF runtime project
The Shumway open SWF runtime project
Shumway is an HTML5 technology experiment that explores building a faithful and efficient renderer for the SWF file format without native code assistance.
Gnash is written in native code (C++). Not sure about "SWFplayer", I think it's long obsolete and irrelevant.
The Shumway open SWF runtime project
The Shumway open SWF runtime project
Since when does Moz Foundation support SWF?
Since when does Moz Foundation support SWF?
Since when does Moz Foundation support SWF?
Since when does Moz Foundation support SWF?
http://www.networkworld.com/community/why-mozilla-does-no...
Since when does Moz Foundation support SWF?
Since when does Moz Foundation support SWF?
Since when does Moz Foundation support SWF?
Since when does Moz Foundation support SWF?
Since when does Moz Foundation support SWF?
codec support
codec support
It simply maps to HTML features where available. It will draw vectors to a canvas, but raster images will be handled by the browser.
initialize: function initialize() {
this._element = document.createElement('video');
this._element.controls = true;
this._element.setAttribute("style", "position: absolute; top: 0px; left: 0px");
this._added = false;
},codec support