ASVGuy::SWFBlog

SWF format is now really open...

SWF format has been open since version 3, 1998. It was again May as far I can remember. Now 10 years later, restrictions on using the format is removed, effective as of today, May 1, 2008.

Previous license restrictions were for creating SWF players, creating SWF files was never restricted. I think this was a good idea at the time, nobody wanted multiple incompatible SWF/Flash Players around, also considering the fact that SWF version 3 even had a Java edition player. Now the technology is mature at version 9 - and as I've said 10 years has passed. I personally don't see any danger of multiple browser players gaining ground.

(Another good consequence of this is that you no longer need Adobe Reader to view the SWF specs, Foxit reader now works just fine).

The news came with Adobe Open Screen Project announcement.

Here are relevant links:
SWF Specs at Adobe SWF Tech Center
FLV/F4V Specs at Adobe FLV Tech Center
AMF Specs
ActionScript VM2 Overview (AS3 specs) (PDF)

[F4V is the file extension for HD Flash video, mp4. There's also F4P, F4A and F4B. For playing F4V, Flash player 9.0.115.0 (Flash Player 9 update 3 - MovieStar- released on December 4, 2007) or later is required. Current version of the Player is 9.0.124.0, released on April 8, 2008]

Blog comments...

I moderate all comments. That surely stops any spam reaching 'published' state and to you, but I have to deal with them all. Most spam and inappropriate comments are not interesting at all. Here are two comments I received for my last post in succession:

Comment:
--------
Always enjoy reading this blog. Please keep up the good work.

Commenter name: jamie
Commenter email: anonymous@anonymous.com
IP address: xx.xxx.xxx.xxx

IP address shows this one's from Florida. There's no email, no pharmacy URL etc., nothing that would raise the red flag, but it doesn't have any real content either. I guess this one might be from a spammer checking out if he can post a comment. I can even amuse myself thinking it's from someone real who enjoys reading my blog...

The next one is a bit nasty:

Comment:
--------
Im sorry to hear that your quitting smoking Burak , if theyres anyone
who deserves lung cancer its you .

My new years resolution is to releace and promote as much copys of ASV
as i can . Poetic justice as far as im concerned now you know what it
feals like to have your work stolen

regards

Commenter name: Raymond
Commenter email: esdrftgyhuji@sedrftg.com
IP address: xx.xxx.xxx.xxx

Raymond is from Texas, as it seems by looking at his IP. Obviously he doesn't know how to spell and he uses a QWERTY keyboard. I'd guess he's rather young. He ends kindly with his 'regards'. His email address really isn't random. You can guess the QWERTY layout even when someone is just pressing random keys wildly to make up a fake address, his address is not random in that sense, he probably keyed the address in neatly one key at a time... He uses a capital for my name and for sentence starts, which I find quite rare for this kind of a comment. Is he really angry or is he working for a cigarette company, I cannot decide. He's after 'poetic justice', hmm, I don't hear that phrase frequently, maybe he's a bit older than I first thought... What do you think?

Raymond, I'm sorry if someone stole your work, but your comment is very rude. (And I had my work stolen, cracked, key generator-ed, translated to obscure languages, many times. I assure you I know how it feels).

Happy new year and about this blog...

I wish a happy new year to you all. To be happy, most probably you'll need health and wealth. I plan to quit smoking in 2008. This will surely bring some health and wealth. I'm sorry for non-smokers, as they won't be able to copy my great plan :)

Anyway, I didn't blog at all in December, apart from this post. There were quite a lot of news from Adobe, Flash Player release, AMF3 specs release, lots of betas from Adobe labs... While spreading the news is nice too, and most probably it's good for my business, I've not been entirely happy blogging 'news'. What original content can I blog? 'News about our software'. That would be the last thing I'd want to do, besides, our software each has their news blogs... 'Interesting bits about SWF format, Flash Player, etc. we encounter'. That would be nice, but probably that would not be too good for our business. We need to keep our edge, where we have it. On top of this, blogging is not easy, you need to care, it takes time, too much time (not that I've been properly blogging). I can't keep this blog as 'Flash news' and have other blogs too...

So, as I intended to do exactly one year ago, in 2008, I'll be blogging freely. I hope this way, this blog will be better content-wise, even if it won't be as focused as before... Thank you.

Where to get Adobe Reader?

Not at adobe.reader-download.org as Microsoft Mouse & Keyboard Products Documentation links you to.

On that page, as of this writing, Microsoft offers documentation in XPS and PDF formats. PDF versions of the documents are smaller, but getting the reader is made extremely hard for the novice user.

On Adobe Reader Distribution page it says: 'Third-party websites must link directly to Adobe.com for the download of Adobe Reader software'. But the logo can be downloaded without an agreement.

Is this an honest mistake? Frankly, I don't think it's Microsoft's official policy but their culture makes it so easy to make these kinds of 'evil mistakes', I think it's very likely that this was done intentionally.

Note: If you want to download Adobe Reader go to Adobe.com and click on the link.

SWX Contest

SWX (pronounced as 'swix') is brainchild of Aral Balkan, the native data format for Flash, the simplest way to work with data in Flash and a great idea implemented.

Now use SWX for your open source project and you may win a prize worth $4000 which includes a copy of Adobe Web Suite Premium and 1 year premium subscription to Lynda.com.

Official excuse for the contest is release of SWX PHP 1.0.

There are judges but there's also public voting.

What more can you say when official 'terms & conditions' include the phrase 'Don’t sue us, we love you'? And winners will be announced on Aral's birthday, November 8, 2007...

I'm announcing, hereby, I will be personally giving away a free license for ASV to all 3 winners in each category (no substitution or transfer permitted, not redeemable in cash :) ).

Old news: AIR Beta2, Flex3 Beta2, AMP prerelease and Flash Lite 3

It all happened on October 1st and I kind of ignored them because of all cool news coming from Adobe MAX.

Flash Lite 3 is out and it supports FLV video along with most SWF 8 content. Flash Lite is Flash for mobile devices, phones etc. and video support means you'll be able to enjoy YouTube with your cell phone (of course your phone has to have FL3).

AIR public beta 2 finally supports Windows 2000 and is overall improved. I'm yet to try it. There's also Flash CS3 update for AIR.

Matt Chotin  has the what's new article for Flex 3, and also covers public beta 2. Ted Patrick announced price decrease for Flex Builder 3, SDK pricing won't be changing because it's already free. All I can say about pricing is this: Regional pricing sucks! Thank god 'free' doesn't translate to a low price outside USA. As always, Ted's blog is the place to find Flex news and info.

Adobe Media Player (AMP) is the long waited official Adobe FLV Player. It seems it's more than that with catalogs, favorite shows etc. and offering content protection to content publishers. Requires latest AIR beta2 and I'm yet to install it. So I'll post my impressions later.

There's also Flex Builder for Linux alpha, released on October 2nd. It's definitely good to see Linux support though I'm not actively using Linux but I do plan in the future, especially if Microsoft fails to deliver a decent version of Windows, something on par with XP, nothing like their latest big flop Vista.

And then there's Adobe Inspire Experience design site alpha, you may want to check it out.

Flash 10 and Quake in Flash

Peter Elst has a post titled Adobe MAX Chicago - Sneak Peeks and you can't afford to miss the videos about next version of Flash and C/C++ to AS3 conversion.

Next version of Flash will have a better 'stage' where you can have your video live and you'll need to test your movie less. You've got to see the new tweens, they will become very capable and easy to use. Lastly demonstrated is kinetics - bones built-in to Flash, too cool I won't even attempt to describe here.

C/C++ to AS3 conversion is really cool too. Applications are endless. You can have Ruby or PHP interpreter converted AS3 and actually run PHP code then. You find a sample C++ code, and you can use it in your SWF easily, there won't be language barriers. Demo is impressive with Quake code converted to AS3. This is really something that can change a lot when it arrives.

Thank you Peter for the videos.

Thermo

Aral again has the video. Simply amazing.

In summary, Thermo will be the visual way to create Flex applications, more specifically UIs.

Some say Flash is for designers, Flex is for developers, how will Thermo change this? Actually, the way I see it, Flash is for animations and more creative work, while Flex is for RIAs. Thermo will make RIA creation workflow easier and also will let designers in.

Exciting times ahead!

Flash Player 10 (Astro) and AIF/Hydra

Aral has the video of the astro preview from Adobe MAX 2007 keynote. A must see.

Astro is the codename for Flash Player 10. Revealed features are advanced text layout (with bidirectional languages support), 3D effects (very cool), and custom filters, blend modes and effects. All are impressive.

For custom filters, blend modes and effects, a new image processing language, codenamed Hydra, is announced. You can play with Hydra now, using Adobe Image Foundation (AIF) Toolkit Technology Preview. You'll need hardware acceleration, as software based rendering is not supported yet. Chances are that your video card is one of the supported ones, unfortunately I still use an X550 based card (my CPU is E6600, quite sufficient. I didn't get a better card because I never needed 3d acceleration, till today), so I was only able to read the documentation. Some features of Hydra will not be supported by Flash, hence it's Adobe Image Foundation, not Flash. Don't forget to check Kevin Goldsmith's blog if you are interested in Hydra.

All in all, I see a very bright future for Adobe Flash Player and the Flash Platform. And thank you Aral for the video (BTW, SWX rocks)!

Flash Player 9 Update 3 Release Candidate

Release Candidate (RC) version of Flash Player 9 Update 3 (moviestar) is available for download at Adobe Labs. Probably the last chance to find any bug and report to Adobe before the release.

Tinic Uro has more details than most of us would want to know (If you have heard of Extended, High 4:2:2 or High 4:4:4 profiles and using them, Tinic has some bad news for you).

MAC OS X 10.1 version is not there yet. Real Player 11 beta is still causing problems. Version number is 9.0.64.0.