The Future of Feathers UI: Part 2 — Haxe and OpenFL

joshtynjala

EDIT: Don't miss this followup post: Feathers UI on Kickstarter

Hi community,

Recently, I started experimenting with Haxe and OpenFL. Obviously, I couldn't pass by the opportunity to prototype of a version of the Feathers UI core architecture. One thing led to another, and I found myself submitting a pull request to OpenFL to improve scale9Grid so that I could add some skins to a prototype Button component, and then I was learning how to write API documentation for Haxe code with dox. Before long, I had a Button, a Slider, and a TextInput. Needless to say, I found myself really enjoying working with Haxe and OpenFL.

In fact, the Haxe/OpenFL combination have been so nice that I'd really like to commit to expanding this new version of Feathers from a prototype to a fully-supported library. So, without further ado, I'd like to share the following announcement:

https://feathersui.com/openfl/

I will launch a Kickstarter campaign for Feathers UI on June 25, 2019. This will give me time to finish up some prototypes, prepare ideas for rewards, and to make sure that there are enough people out there who are actually interested in this project. Please sign up to get notified so that I know that you're ready to become a backer.

Additionally, I'd like Feathers to become a sustainable business going forward, so I'm also planning to create premium Feathers products — like advanced components, educational screencasts, and some in-depth ebooks. It's likely that some of these will become backer rewards in the upcoming crowdfunding campaign, but they'll primarily be a new source of income to ensure that Feathers can be self-funding and doesn't strictly rely on corporate sponsorship.

I'm really excited about this! Thank you, Feathers community, for sharing all of your inspirational projects over the years, and hopefully, now... for years to come!

Happy coding!

Josh Tynjala
Feathers UI

2dguy

joshtynjala Additionally, I'd like Feathers to become a sustainable business going forward, so I'm also planning to create premium Feathers products — like advanced components, educational screencasts, and some in-depth ebooks. It's likely that some of these will become backer rewards in the upcoming crowdfunding campaign, but they'll primarily be a new source of income to ensure that Feathers can be self-funding and doesn't strictly rely on corporate sponsorship.

Now that Harmon is going to breathe new life into Air, how does that affect your outlook for supporting traditional AS3 development? Thx.

yadurajiv

This is such awesome news! I think both Haxe and OpenFL will benefit greatly having Feathers UI alongside! All the best!! I really hope this works out! 🙂

inverse

Fantastic! This is the kind of news that I like to hear. Now, will there be an official Starling port to OpenFL as well? That sure would be neat. Congrats 🙂

Michoko

This is exciting! If people like you begin to support this solution, it might create some traction and allow developers to migrate to openfl in case of AIR being abandoned by Adobe. Now we just need a company like Distriqt to port their amazing ANEs and we're good to go! 😊

YoHipHopJa

This is just great! A couple of days ago I wanted to write a request for the transfer of feathers in Haxe + Openfl. I recently began to study it, but I already liked it. This is a great replacement for a deceased flash and a not very tenacious air.

rodrigo

I hope you can workaround openfl dependencies to maintain a compatible swc for as3 users, definitely doubt it though.
genome2d does that, but is pure haxe code...

best of luck with the development and founding Josh.

Daniel

That's great news, Josh! It makes me extremely happy to hear that there's a chance that Feathers will live on in Haxe. All the best for the crowdfunding campaign! 😄🤞

Aymeric

I thought it was an April fool joke (knowing the reluctance of Josh to Haxe)! Looking for post hour... well don't mind the timezone, it's been posted a 2nd april!

So it's an awesome news. Having Starling and Feathers running on OpenFL we can say goodbye to Flash while keeping its legacy forever.

One question: Starling has already been ported to OpenFL, does Feathers will work on OpenFL directly, or Starling - OpenFL version, or both? Both would be better of course 🙂

Honestly @joshtynjala I did not think that day would come. It's amazing that you see Haxe is a real option now, would you mind to explain what changed on your side?

joshtynjala

Aymeric Honestly @joshtynjala I did not think that day would come. It's amazing that you see Haxe is a real option now, would you mind to explain what changed on your side?

One of my clients has expressed interest in porting an AIR app built with Flex to Haxe and OpenFL. They'll need a solid UI component framework, and obviously, I'd prefer to use Feathers.

Since it's probably been several years since the last time I played around with Haxe, I decided to give it a fresh look — no preconceptions. I started porting the Feathers validation lifecycle, and everything went so smoothly, that I just kept going until I had a working Button with skinnable states. Then, I made a Slider, followed by a TextInput. Now, I'm working on a ScrollContainer. There are still a lot of features to go back and fill in on each component, but just getting the basics up and running has been so easy!

Now, I can't get the idea out of my head that Feathers could still have a future... especially if it could become a sustainable business that doesn't rely on a single, large, corporate sponsor. A really important thing for me is making sure that the community can buy premium Feathers products (advanced components like charts/graphs, for instance) after the crowdfunding campaign is done. Not only does it support Feathers, but it helps everyone invest and commit to the Haxe/OpenFL/Feathers ecosystem, which is good for its long-term health.

mfrasier

Havent messed with haxe yet, but happy to hear the possibility of the code living on is a reality!

Pedro_Fernandez

This is great news. I signed so I'm ready to collaborate :-)

For some time now we have been porting our framework as well as other As3 components to Haxe / OpenFL and we see it as a very similar technology in the way of working and implementing projects in this field.

From what I understand, Josh is going to port Feathers to OpenFL directly. Not through Starling. It would be something more like the old Foxhole components based on the standard Flash DisplayList (in GPU mode). Correct me if I'm wrong, Josh.

Now we hope that there will be advances in multiplatform video in OpenFL, which is still very problematic according to which platform. With this resolved we can say that we have a development platform for the future and independently of a company.

Thank you so much for everything.

joshtynjala

Yes, this new version of Feathers UI will be running on OpenFL natively, without a Starling layer.

Caio

Incredible Josh! Just waiting for the campaign email.

confidant

Hi Josh,
As a semi-regular OpenFL user this interests me. There are already fairly mature UI frameworks, Stablex and HaxeUI which already work with OpenFL. It seems to me that premium Feathers products will really be necessary for you to get a critical mass of user buy-in. I know very little about Feathers, just that it was popular on the Flash platform—perhaps it has enough brand recognition that you can make this work. I wish you well!
-Allan

Pointless

Josh have you thought about taking Feathers over to Unity?
I haven't tried to create a ui recently in Unity, but when I have played around in the past its been painful compared to Feathers/Starling.

There's an asset store for monetising and the guy running NGUI has made alot of money with his system https://assetstore.unity.com/packages/tools/gui/ngui-next-gen-ui-2413

Maybe some of the guys using Unity could share their experiences using the default stuff or NGUI. But in my biased opinion Feathers is way better.

carlosrovira

Hi Josh, very interesting and hope you get the back to go with it!

I never could try Feathers for a real project but I think is very cool, and coming from you is clearly very well crafted.
About a Haxe and OpenFL, is the same as before, I couldn't do any real work with it until now, in this case the main reason for me was that it was always targeting Games and not IT apps, that was where Flex was moving better. At the time where I evaluate Haxe I found a huge problem that I think is still not solved: the lack of MXML, or something similar. If you effort plan to bring MXML to Haxe, I think it would be a great point.

Just only hope you still continue doing so great contributions to Apache Royale, since is clearly better thanks to you.

Best

Carlos

joshtynjala

carlosrovira If you effort plan to bring MXML to Haxe, I think it would be a great point.

Some kind of XML is definitely in my plans. Ideally, it would be part of the compilation process with embedded Haxe code, similar to MXML. However, if I can't make that work, then I'll find a way to create UI from XML loaded at runtime.

carlosrovira Just only hope you still continue doing so great contributions to Apache Royale, since is clearly better thanks to you.

Yes, I plan to continue contributing to the Apache Royale compiler.

carlosrovira

joshtynjala Yes, I plan to continue contributing to the Apache Royale compiler.

great Josh! 🙂

However, if I can't make that work, then I'll find a way to create UI from XML loaded at runtime.

IMHO, load of xml at runtime would not be a good solution. The great point of MXML is the compiler translating to AS3 structures saving user time of writing that code. In fact I think something like that already exists in haXe and in other technologies tried to solve from that side, and I think they don't get to the same grade of useful feature that we want when think about MXML. Just my 2 🙂.

Gama11

carlosrovira The great point of MXML is the compiler translating to AS3 structures saving user time of writing that code.

For what it's worth, with Haxe macros, you can do just about anything you want at compile-time. 😀 Generating code from XML is something that for instance HaxeUI does (example).

Additionally, Haxe 4 also adds support for inline markup, which is great for UI libraries that use XML.

Dimensionscape

I have been experimenting with Haxe and OpenFL this past year. A familiar UI Framework would be awesome @joshtynjala. Feathers has frankly been indispensable to my final AS3 project and past workflow. It was such a pleasure to work with. Hope we can fund your goals. Best of luck!