The Hand that Feeds us?
It seems like everyone and their dog is talking about Open Source Flash. This article attempts to detail how you can go about completing a Flash project without ever using the Flash IDE.
This is all fine and dandy, but is it not bringing us back to the days of drawing boxes in LOGO? I think this is the inevitable result of Flash becoming more of a product for developers than for designers - developers are much more likely to look at the existing Flash environment and think 'we could do all of this... with CODE!' Personally, I make use of the IDE quite a lot in any given project - for simple things like organizing MovieClip nesting structures, defining mask areas, and inevitably for creating graphic elements of various kinds. Could I do all of these things in .AS, in an external editor, and compile using SWFML or something similar? Probably.
Would it make sense? I'm not sure that it would. Though I admittedly haven't forayed very far into the world of OS flash, I'm skeptical that applications created entirely apart from the main application could do everything that those created in the traditional way could.
To me, the strength of Flash since F4 has been in it's abililty to bridge the world of the designer to the world of the developer. As such, it will be interesting to see if these code-only approached to Flash development will have any legs. Time will tell.
2 Comments:
My feeling is that at least as long as Flash costs hundreds of pounds, the free alternatives have a lot going for them...?
For my part I'm much more interested in creating mathematically-driven animations than I am in any of the rest of Flash - which is not to say that I'm not interested in that at all - but not really enough to justify the price tag, even if I had that kind of money to spend out of my own pocket.
So until I get a grant that pays for me to buy Flash, or somehow get unexpectedly rich, it's open-source or piracy for me! Or, er, try to learn the product well enough during the trial period that I can get everything I need to done before my month is up.
I'm sort of hoping that at some point Processing will be able to output .swf files, but maybe I'm a dreamer...
I agree with you that for non-commercial applications, an open source alternative would be great. But for commercial projects, it's just the cost of doing business.
I imagine someone would be able to build a processing library to output .SWF files - but they would have to be played by the Flash Player, with all of it's limitations.
It would be cool, though, if there was an 'uber flash player' of some kind that would play .SWF files, but with a whole lot more memory overhead and processing power.
I've often thought this when building projects for the stan-alone player... why do I have to be limited by a lightweight player when I'm not delivering over the web?
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