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.
Related
How can I convert a Haxe SWF to a compiled native app using AIR?
Is there a way to override the Flash default .SWF export when you use a Haxe Command Line to export a SWF that can be packaged up into an Adobe Air file?
I'm having trouble finding information on how to compile a Haxe .SWF export via command line into Adobe Air. Ive tried deleting the default swf and renaming the Haxe .swf export, but Adobe still rewrites it when it packages everything up.
E.G: "haxe -swf main-flash.swf -main Main -swf-version 15 -swf-header 960:640:60:f68712"
I'm using Mac OS X with Flash CC and Atom to write my game with Starling-HAXE. I want to target desktop (PC/MAC/Linux).
Thanks!
The OpenFL tools used to support Adobe AIR on the desktop, if you look at this older helper class, you may find hints on how you might go from a Haxe-generated SWF file to a final AIR application:
https://github.com/openfl/lime-tools/blob/master/helpers/AIRHelper.hx
Looking at it again, I believe you call ADT with the proper signing parameters. You probably need an application.xml file as well, here is one:
https://github.com/openfl/openfl/blob/master/templates/flash/templates/air/application.xml
You would need to replace variables such as "::APP_PACKAGE::" with com.yourcompany.yourproject, and other sensible values.
If someone would like to look at integrating AIR support into the Lime tools again, I'm open to the idea. The problem I was concerned about was long-term maintenance
I have some batch files that will do this (although will most likely need to be reworked on your behalf). I'm not at my computer right now, but will post them over the weekend. On a side note it would be great to have this type of functionality baked into flashdevelop.
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.
Writing text to .txt files using actionscript. how? i couldn't find anything about that in the internet. is that possible? for flash player.
The flash player (the one in browsers) is run through a sandbox which prevents it from accessing or creating files on the users computer (imagine the chaos if it wasn't!), among other things.
You can store persistent data using SharedObject (but this is not readily visible to the user, only useful for storing settings etc).
The other options is to send the data to a web service which in turn would allow the user to download it. Those are your only options really.
Adobe Air is a different runtime, designed to be used for desktop applications. Eg like any program on your computer. It can do a lot more, but has to be downloaded and possibly installed before you can run it (it will not run from within a HTML page).
Check out Adobe AIR: http://www.adobe.com/devnet/air/flash/quickstart/articles/building_text_editor.html
That's impossible from flash player, only from air.
I am looking for a tool that can help me converting my swf to exe and app. I know that there are several options available. My application will be frequently updated so update feature is essentions for me. Does anybody know a converter that might help me?
Any suggestions are welcome!
p.s. As another option, I can make app and exe out of a loader app that will load main application module every time it is updated.
IMPORTANT (added 22.08.2011)
Guys, thank you very much for your replies, but if you read carefully my question you will probably see that my main concern is about build in update feature inside projector eg. Mac app will be able to check for new version of my app automatically...
create an AIR application with native installers and use air.update and air.update.events for to push updates.
You can use flajector or f-in-box developer's library.
You may already be aware of this, but there is an existing publishing tool you can use inside of Flash Professional.
The publisher is in different menus on different versions of flash (CS4 to CS5) and on different operating systems (Windows vs Mac) so I'll just give you the "hot key"
While inside of flash, press Shift+Alt+F12 and that will bring up some publish options. For an exe file you will want to select Win Projector or the option with .exe. Mac Projector or .app will do the same for mac. Hit publish once your preference is select and viola, that's it!
you really want to use flajector. Cool programm.
I have been given the task of creating an Autorun installer for a distributable CD, and thought I would challenge the task with Flash. In previous versions of flash it was possible to use fscommand and trickery to run other local exe files, but due to virus creators and what-not, this has been reworked and totally destroyed for others to use.
So as a Flash developer I have hit a bit of a brick wall with this, and am asking out for any alternative ideas anybody may have? I am quite open with learning new languages/programs, and would like any expert advice from people in the know.
Just as a heads up for what features are required:
GUI with simple graphics/buttons
Ability to launch external exe/pdf files
must be able to be compiled to an exe, which can be launched by any windows machine without installing third party software eg Java.
The only simple solution I have thought of is making an html page, but using a browser is something I want to avoid doing!
Please Help :)
Christian
You can continue using flash freely if you want. There is a bunch of projector tools like northcode swf studion, Zink, mProjector and others. You can also create your own tool using any system programing language that produces windows executable - the only thing you will need - is to create an ActiveX instance of Flash Player and set up minimalistic API to allow Flash call required system functions.