I am trying to implement HLS in action script for an audio player. Are there any open source APIs which i could use ?
This is a pretty big project. I have done it myself twice. The only open source version I can think of is osmx. But your millage may vary.
Related
With all the security issues with Flash lately I am looking at alternatives for if/when Flash is retired at my work. We use strictly IE 11 and IE11 seems to be very finicky about css3 animations. I see the new Flash has the ability to publish the file as embeddable actionscript files instead of a swf file. Is this a viable alternative to Flash or is this vulnerable to the same security issues Flash has? My assumption is the vulnerabilities exist in the Flash players but I want to be certain.
No. Apples and Oranges, really.
The Flash Player is a runtime environment of the Flash platform (AIR being another). It "plays" .swf files.
ActionScript is the scripting language that an apropriate compiler (mxmlc, for example) compiles into .swf files.
I see the new Flash has the ability to publish the file as embeddable ActionScript files instead of a swf file.
You can embed any file, but guess where you embed it into? Into the swf file.
Again, ActionScript is the programing/scripting language and an swf file is the compiled result.
Flash CC can also export to JavaScript/HTML/CSS. That means that instead of creating a .swf file, a bunch of JavaScript/HTML/CSS files are created.
As you can see in the link you provided, the feature sets are not equivalent.
Note: The 3D Rotation tool in the toolbar of the Flash Professional CC workspace is disabled when creating HTML5 Canvas documents because it is specific to SWF projects and not supported in the HTML5 specification (see Figure 3).
There's a whole bunch of other things not supported
Recommendation
If one comes to the conclusion that the Flash platform is not an appropriate publishing platform any more, why bother sticking to the Adobe Flash program?
It appears to be disadvantageous to cling to the program, just for the sake of keep on using it.
Why not use the CreateJS library on its own? Or any of the other dozens of great JS libraries? There's a lot to explore in the post-Flash era and it is very exiting. It's not a good idea to stay behind, still coding in dead languages, hoping that there's a translator to communicate with the Present. Try to order a pizza in Latin and you know what I mean.
If the goal is to target multiple different platforms, there are alternative tools to do this like defrac or Haxe that allow you to compile from one languages to many platforms.
The answer to the question if compiling ActionScript to JavaScript/HTML/CSS is a reasonable workflow for the future is no. It might be a good tool to port existing projects, but not to neglect the current developments in the JavaScript/HTML/CSS realm.
I seem to get almost weekly Java updates. All these technologies can have security issues, it's just that Adobe react quickly, and release a fix as soon as possible. That does come with a certain amount of publicity.
About using CreateJS on its own, you could do that, and come up with your own libraries to create hierarchy, synchronizing sound to visual events, asset management, etc. You could also do everything purely in code, if your imagination is good enough to do that. Or, you could just use Flash Pro, and get all of those things for free.
I have a compiled NaCl module that plays audio directly on the speakers. Is it possible to capture the audio buffer with the Web Audio API, or do I need to get the source code for the NaCl module and modify it (and learn Pepper and C++) to achieve this?
Not entirely sure (at all) how NaCl works, but https://github.com/mattdiamond/Recorderjs can be used to capture audio in Web Audio. It seems likely it'd work in this scenario too.
I want to to play around with Actionscript, mostly to compare the language with Javascript (I'm interested in the type system). Is there a straightforward way to do that or do I need to also install Flash or something similar? I'd prefer something that works on Linux but Windows-only is fine too.
Basically, I want to know if there is something for Actionscript that is analogous to v8/NodeJS or Rhino for Javascript, where you can run JS scripts directly (using console.log for output) without having to use a browser, create an HTML page, etc.
There is an amazing online tool capable of compiling Actionscript 3.0, this will aid your investigation of the language!
http://wonderfl.net/
As3Eval also is a good tool. Play around with the demo to get a feel for it.
It's windows only, but download Java, then install FlashDevelop : http://www.flashdevelop.org/
It'll download the flex sdk and everything you'll need to get started.
You'll need flash player to see your tests, and normally the debug player (take the standalone), which you can download here: http://www.adobe.com/support/flash player/downloads.html
As #neil says, you can also use wonderfl to test directly online, though obviously the experience won't be the same as a full ide.
You should be able to develop on Linux directly if you want to install flash builder (eclipse) but it's not free
I already made a game with flash, and I want to provide an easy download for people that would rather play offline. Thing is, i use a folder whole structure to dynamically load content per level. Folder structure looks like this, not that it matters that much:
Game folder
animations
anim1.swf
anim2.swf
sounds
music1.mp3
soundeffect1.mp3
levels
level1.lev
level2.lev
myGame.swf
How should I go to distribute this? Should I just resort to make a zip file for the flash game and assume people know how to extract and open the swf? Is there any other way to port easily as an executable? Perhaps Adobe Air (not sure if this works though)?
Thanks, and please help!
Distributing a zip file is the only option if you really want that structure to prevail. Else,
Embed all the resources in the main (myGame) swf & distribute it.
Provide a html page for people who do not have standalone flash player installed.
Embedding as a single file allows the browser to cache the single swf & allow the player to keep playing offline until cache is cleared. So user might not even need an explicit download.
If you are using Flash Builder it is fairly straightforward to compile the application into a self-installing AIR executable (or DMG on a Mac). It is possible to include the AIR runtime which would avoid potential problems of the user not having the correct flash player for example.
An alternative to AIR would be to create a projector executable from inside the standalone Flash Player or from the Flash authoring environment.
Another option to using a zip file would be to use a free installer creator such as InnoSetup or Nullsoft on Windows, or Packager on Mac. Linux users are generally more tech savvy and so a tar would probably be well understood.
Adobe AIR works wonderfully! I use it for my own project, and your project should transition over to it with little to no modification (any issues should show up in the Compiler Errors and Output). The only downside is that, past AIR 2, there isn't any Linux support.
The other option is obviously to create a standalone .SWF projector inside a zip or installer, but in my opinion, that isn't the sleekest way to deploy for desktop. The advantage of AIR over this is that it gives you access to additional desktop functions that Flash Player doesn't.
I wonder what is the best solution for handling HLS in action script.
This very project seems to be quite mature, but somewhat outdated.
GitHub shows nothing relevant.
JW Player supports playing HLS from Flash.
http://www.longtailvideo.com/jw-player/hls-rtmp-live-streaming/