generating Canvas.swf without needing Flash
Hello, I have done some experiments [1] in generating the Canvas.swf file using the excellent and free-of-charge KineticFusion SWF compiler [2] instead of the expensive Flash IDE. At first I simply used an empty RVML file (KF's XML format for representing SWFs) and tried to include the original canvas.as from SVN trunk but I got some (I guess trivial) compilation errors due to KineticFusion being slightly pickier than Flash on ECMAScript syntax. So I decompiled the original Canvas.swf, cut and pasted all the ECMAScript code to a new canvas.as and included that one and not only it works like a charm but the resulting SWF is slightly smaller too. Maybe this will enable future Nevow releases to ship without the Canvas.fla file, which is then redundant and introduces a dependency on Flash for people willing to grok it. ciao ste [1] http://demaledetti.net/ste/nevow/ [2] http://www.kinesissoftware.com
On Feb 11, 2005, at 5:57 PM, Stefano Debenedetti wrote:
Hello,
I have done some experiments [1] in generating the Canvas.swf file using the excellent and free-of-charge KineticFusion SWF compiler [2] instead of the expensive Flash IDE.
This sounds absolutely wonderful. Thank you for trying this; I never would have had time to do so.
At first I simply used an empty RVML file (KF's XML format for representing SWFs) and tried to include the original canvas.as from SVN trunk but I got some (I guess trivial) compilation errors due to KineticFusion being slightly pickier than Flash on ECMAScript syntax.
If the errors are trivial, I am +100 on someone pointing me at an environment where I can try this and see the errors, and a guide on how to fix said errors. I would prefer to create ecmascript-compliant code as much as possible (both in canvas and livepage, if possible -- don't know how much the ecmascript standard actually relates to javascript in the wild?)
So I decompiled the original Canvas.swf, cut and pasted all the ECMAScript code to a new canvas.as and included that one and not only it works like a charm but the resulting SWF is slightly smaller too.
Excellent.
Maybe this will enable future Nevow releases to ship without the Canvas.fla file, which is then redundant and introduces a dependency on Flash for people willing to grok it.
Yes. I will attempt to get an environment where Canvas.swf can be generated without Flash asap; it irritates me that I have to have Flash running, which is ugly and a pig, just to press Command-0 every time I change the .as file. Donovan
Hi Folks, Questionmark? I just subscribed to this list because twisted seems like such a fascinating thing and was surprised by this post. Is the twisted web community interested in swf? I confess to have thought that there would be prejudice against it's use in the twisted community. Was this a prejudice of my own? Ironic. Has swf truely become that accepted? I hadn't imagined it would be. Followup questionmarks, and more to the point. What is canvas.swf for? What would your desires be along these lines? Thanks, -Cort
On Feb 11, 2005, at 5:57 PM, Stefano Debenedetti wrote:
Hello,
I have done some experiments [1] in generating the Canvas.swf file using the excellent and free-of-charge KineticFusion SWF compiler [2] instead of the expensive Flash IDE.
This sounds absolutely wonderful. Thank you for trying this; I never would have had time to do so.
At first I simply used an empty RVML file (KF's XML format for representing SWFs) and tried to include the original canvas.as from SVN trunk but I got some (I guess trivial) compilation errors due to KineticFusion being slightly pickier than Flash on ECMAScript syntax.
If the errors are trivial, I am +100 on someone pointing me at an environment where I can try this and see the errors, and a guide on how to fix said errors. I would prefer to create ecmascript-compliant code as much as possible (both in canvas and livepage, if possible -- don't know how much the ecmascript standard actually relates to javascript in the wild?)
So I decompiled the original Canvas.swf, cut and pasted all the ECMAScript code to a new canvas.as and included that one and not only it works like a charm but the resulting SWF is slightly smaller too.
Excellent.
Maybe this will enable future Nevow releases to ship without the Canvas.fla file, which is then redundant and introduces a dependency on Flash for people willing to grok it.
Yes. I will attempt to get an environment where Canvas.swf can be generated without Flash asap; it irritates me that I have to have Flash running, which is ugly and a pig, just to press Command-0 every time I change the .as file.
Donovan
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On Sat, 2005-02-12 at 16:52 -0800, rpiwork@notebookmargins.com wrote:
Hi Folks,
Questionmark?
I just subscribed to this list because twisted seems like such a fascinating thing and was surprised by this post. Is the twisted web community interested in swf? I confess to have thought that there would be prejudice against it's use in the twisted community. Was this a prejudice of my own? Ironic. Has swf truely become that accepted? I hadn't imagined it would be.
I think it's fair to say that most people, and not just in the open source world either, dislike web pages that use Flash *unnecessarily* but accept that Flash does have some uses. Open source people are probably more vocal about the issue though ;-). Anyway, Twisted and Twisted Web do not use Flash. It is only used in one small part of Nevow (see below). I work on and with Nevow and, so far, I have not touched the Flash file except for running the examples to see what fun I'm missing out on ;-).
Followup questionmarks, and more to the point.
What is canvas.swf for?
canvas.swf is a small Flash file (movie?) that supports the nevow.canvas module. nevow.canvas allows the server to actively draw on the canvas in the browser. canvas.swf also sends user events (mouse clicks etc) back to the server. I believe divmod are using canvas in Quotient to render "real-time" performance graphs, or something like that. Get Nevow from svn trunk and have a look.
What would your desires be along these lines?
I'm not sure what you mean by this? Personally, I would like canvas to keep out of the way ... until I need it. Fortunately, that's exactly how it is already. It's probably worth noting that livepage's predecessor used Flash for bidirectional communication between client and server. Now that most browsers support (or will support) JavaScript's XMLHttpRequest, livepage uses that instead of Flash.
Thanks,
-Cort
On Feb 11, 2005, at 5:57 PM, Stefano Debenedetti wrote:
Hello,
I have done some experiments [1] in generating the Canvas.swf file using the excellent and free-of-charge KineticFusion SWF compiler [2] instead of the expensive Flash IDE.
This sounds absolutely wonderful. Thank you for trying this; I never would have had time to do so.
At first I simply used an empty RVML file (KF's XML format for representing SWFs) and tried to include the original canvas.as from SVN trunk but I got some (I guess trivial) compilation errors due to KineticFusion being slightly pickier than Flash on ECMAScript syntax.
If the errors are trivial, I am +100 on someone pointing me at an environment where I can try this and see the errors, and a guide on how to fix said errors. I would prefer to create ecmascript-compliant code as much as possible (both in canvas and livepage, if possible -- don't know how much the ecmascript standard actually relates to javascript in the wild?)
So I decompiled the original Canvas.swf, cut and pasted all the ECMAScript code to a new canvas.as and included that one and not only it works like a charm but the resulting SWF is slightly smaller too.
Excellent.
Maybe this will enable future Nevow releases to ship without the Canvas.fla file, which is then redundant and introduces a dependency on Flash for people willing to grok it.
Yes. I will attempt to get an environment where Canvas.swf can be generated without Flash asap; it irritates me that I have to have Flash running, which is ugly and a pig, just to press Command-0 every time I change the .as file.
Donovan
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Hi Matt, Fair enough. I was just surprised.
canvas.swf is a small Flash file (movie?) that supports the nevow.canvas module. nevow.canvas allows the server to actively draw on the canvas in the browser. canvas.swf also sends user events (mouse clicks etc) back to the server.
I believe divmod are using canvas in Quotient to render "real-time" performance graphs, or something like that.
Get Nevow from svn trunk and have a look.
I will, I was able to get an idea of what twisted is from the site, but wasn't quite sure what nevow or a couple of the other projects are. I will take a look at whatever examples are there(and continue to lurk in order to learn more about the projects). Certainly there seems to be a lot of interesting-to-awesome stuff going on.
What would your desires be along these lines?
I'm not sure what you mean by this? Personally, I would like canvas to keep out of the way ... until I need it. Fortunately, that's exactly how it is already.
Ha Ha, yes. I just meant that I could imagine Donovan's fustration with having to use the flash ide just to compile a file and that by knowing more what was needed, that I could look into it. It sounds like kinetic fusion is currently all that's needed, but I asked in case there are other similar problems somewhere that would be nice to have solved. Thank you for your answer. I was really just wierded out by that. But it all makes sense now. -Cort
participants (4)
-
Donovan Preston -
Matt Goodall -
rpiwork＠notebookmargins.com -
Stefano Debenedetti