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

Michoko

Dimensionscape I hate to say it, after a few weeks to digest, and still with nothing substantial coming from Harman at the time of this writing, I think Harman has dropped the ball.

I certainly didn't want to start an argument, we definitely don't need another flame war. But when I read your statement above, it really didn't reflect my latest experience with Harman's communication. That's why I was checking if you got their latest email updates.

And yes, let's stay on topic, which is the future of Feathers UI. 🙂

Edit: Oh and by the way, I'll be very grateful for all the experience and knowledge you'll be willing to share in the future, regarding your migration, as this is an interesting technology. Cheers! 🙂

Dimensionscape

Michoko I've been getting the emails and forwarding them to pertinent customers and the common sentiment is that the lack of any concrete or official statements in regards to licensing costs or affirmed release date for 33 has not been reassuring. I am not talking about the generalizations, limited information, and other details provided by Andrew and his team via email. If you know something I don't in regards to exact numbers on pricing and licensing or an officially confirmed release window, please fill me in.

Dimensionscape

Michoko
Here are some of the key issues in our communications with Harman so far. Andrew wrote:

The goal for the formal release of AIR v33 is then at the start of July, hopefully giving sufficient time for application packaging/testing/deployment prior to the 1st August deadline. Apologies for the delay (and for the information drought recently) – this deal has been a long time being prepared and ensuring that all the lawyers are happy!

It's almost July, and a stable release doesn't seem like its in the cards until at least the second week of July based on more recent communications but there's still no guarantee. Furthermore, despite letting us know that the deal has been a long time in the making, there was almost no rollout prepared -- no website or functional pricing model. These minor details already paint a bleak picture in terms of the resources Harman is allotting for the SDK.

On the 7th we were told the beta would no longer be on time

As I'd written below (on 31 May), we are hoping to soon publish our beta of the AIR v33 SDK to support Android 64-bit ARM platforms. We were targeting the end of the coming week - 14th June

We're thinking that it would be good to get you "something" that you can use ASAP just to start testing your own applications, so we are planning to push out a beta version (or perhaps we should call it alpha..) as soon as this is ready,

On the 17th we were finally told Beta links were coming "soon". And a day later we have this:

As a quick update: we found an interesting problem this afternoon with our builds of the AIR runtime, which means we were unable to release these ones; we've just managed to resolve this and are rebuilding the release candidates. It was an issue with symbol visibility caused by the build system, rather than anything functional, so we expect our previous testing to still be valid with the rebuilt versions.

We'll be doing a brief bit of sanity testing on this in the morning tomorrow so we should be able to get the release out to you by around midday GMT. Thanks for all those of you who've accepted that license agreement, I'll send you links to where the packages can then be downloaded.

I'm still waiting for the link. We look forward to continue working within the AS3 ecosystem, don't get me wrong, it's just a tough sell at the moment considering we don't have anything concrete to tell our clients during a pivotal time where they have a TON of questions and fears.

I don't have anything more to say about this, especially here. Sorry Josh.

hugo

This became a little out of control since my last post 🙂
I agree with all of you, LOL 🙂

Months before we know Harmon, I evaluated Flex/AIR mobile alternative for Apps (not games on my case).
You can find my tests here in the forum.
I started, about a week ago, even kwoning now about Harmon and I must say that is one of my best decisions latelly.
I already breaked the initial resistance that we all felt on a new plataform and I'm more confident on the new plataform.

About Desktop it's another story and in the same way that doing Web Mobile Apps it's not for me, doing Web Desktop Apps it's also not for me.
For Desktop I don't see many options out there.

Back to the topic:
I tried Haxe/OpenFl for the first time recently however it failed just because of the UI, where Feathers is strong, so, the marriage between Feathers and Haxe/OpenFl seems a way out and how knows even a brith future for us and special for the Feathers author.

I really, really hope that he is sucessfull on that jorney.
Even more than Harmon, I must say.

Shaun_Max

Dimensionscape I am still waiting for somebody to simplify haxe-starling conversion and put it out there for us to watch and learn. BTW do we have flox in starling-haxe?

joshtynjala

Dimensionscape Can't wait! I've had to roll my own components for Haxe Starling such as ScrollContainer and TextInput....I miss feathers!

Just in case you weren't aware, the new version of Feathers UI will not be running on Starling. It will be pure OpenFL. To put it another way, Feathers components will be based on openfl.display.Sprite.

joshtynjala

Folks, if you want to talk about Harman, please start a new topic. Thanks!

Murray

@joshtynjala looking forward to the Kickstarter launch!

Just one thing though - I've never used Haxe or Open FL and I struggle to understand exactly what Haxe and Open FL are, what they're for and how they fit together. I try to compare them with Flash, AS3 and AIR, but it doesn't want to click in my head.

Would you be able to give me a simple overview, or point me somewhere to get my head around it? (I realise this isn't rocket science, but it's just something I don't get!)

joshtynjala

Here's the basic rundown:

Haxe is a programming language, similar to ActionScript.

OpenFL is an implementation of the standard library from Flash, with classes like Sprite, Bitmap, TextField, URLRequest, Event, Sound, etc. You can think of OpenFL being like Flash Player and AIR.

When you create an app with OpenFL, you can build native apps for Windows, macOS, Android, and iOS (and some others), like AIR. You can also use OpenFL to target web browsers, like Flash Player (except your app will run on JS instead of a plugin). Basically, OpenFL is both Flash Player and AIR rolled into one.

Murray

joshtynjala OK - thank you! Like I said, I know it's simple stuff, but it's never stuck in my head.

A couple of follow-up questions (sorry!) - so in a scenario like the upcoming requirement for Android 64-bit, is it Open FL that will need to be updated to meet these requirements? And, in your opinion, do the contributors to Open FL move quickly to meet these requirements? I'm guessing yes, as you're putting a lot of effort into porting Feathers!

joshtynjala

Murray I'm pretty sure that Haxe and OpenFL already fully support 64-bit Android, and yes, the contributors seem to be able to meet new platform/app store requirements quickly.

Shaun_Max

joshtynjala I am sorry for asking this question, my understanding was that, we are using OpenFl in Haxe to create app right! The word is cross compiling, thats what is confusing to all! If there are any good video tutorials please do share, its a request to all who follows!

joshtynjala feathers is for OpenFl, which can be used in Haxe(in Typescript)

joshtynjala

Shaun_Max Are you asking me any questions in this message? I'm sorry, but I can't quite figure out if you are or not...

Shaun_Max

joshtynjala Actually I started to ask a question, but then pull out of it, sorry for that! 😛 The last line was just a confirmation what to expect from you for Feathers!

Dimensionscape

joshtynjala Ah, thanks for clarifying. I must have overlooked that detail. Fair enough, we are looking forward to it all the same. 🙂

matulk

Also as a Reminder, because I get the feeling many people do not seem to realise: Haxe (and OpenFL) can target SWF Byte code. So you can compile a regular AIR app with Haxe (and OpenFL). And this Haxe target is very very mature. Even performance will be (in many cases) better, than when you would have written your app in Actionscript3.

Actionscript3 got very old. Haxe is very similar but more modern and with much more features. So for all who remember and where disappointed about Actionscript NEXT: just use Haxe. It's pretty much what NEXT would have been (and more).

You can also use SWC libs directly in Haxe. Even ANEs can be used flawlessly and easily

I do not see any reason to not use Haxe when targeting even Air (besides not having the resources to learn the language and compiler) .

But it gets slightly off topic again 😉

denisgladkiy

Let's talk only about feathers here!

donricardo

Hi.
Most of the time I used RobotLegs with Starling (BTW thanks to Josh for robotlegs-framework-starling).
I would like to know if I can still use Robotlegs 1.X with Haxe and openFL?
Thanks

hugo

Just to be clear, I can write the UI components in XML like I do in MXML for Flex, even on the future Feathers UI for Haxe, correct ?

Or I'm wrong and I will need to write directly on code behind and there is no XML UI ?

My focus is Apps (not games).

« Previous Page Next Page »