Flash Projector Enhancers

Wednesday 18 August 2004  –  Filed under: Software  –  No Comments

There are quite a lot of Flash Projector tools available today. With the release of a Mac OS X plugin by Flash Studio Pro and the new version of mProjector (now owned by Screentime Media) I thought it would be a good idea to share some of the pros and cons of the tools available.

As some of you may know, I was involved in developing the current version of Screenweaver (commercial product has been discontinued, now available as an OSFlash project), although I left the company that created it, Rubberduck, over a year ago.

Screenweaver logo Screenweaver was revolutionary as it was the first commercial tool (that I know of) to introduce callback functions and a complete API of new ActionScript commands, which seamlessly integrates into Flash. By doing so, Screenweaver didn’t require users to work with cumbersome and error-prone fscommands, but let’s them work with clean ActionScript callbacks and objects. It is even possible to specify scope for the callback functions, allowing for very powerful scripting.

This way of working has recently also been introduced by Flash Studio Pro with their FSP Script, which allows you to use callbacks instead of multiple-frame loops to await the result of asynchronous fscommands. Unfortunately, it has no way of specifying scope for callbacks. Scripting may not yet be perfect with FSP, the tool has the enormous advantage of being able to compile (limited) Mac OS X projectors.

According to the Northcode forums (registration required), SWF Studio version 3.0 will also feature an ActionScript API. It has taken quite a while for Northcode to create this new version, but it includes some interesting new features, such as unattended automatic build generation.

mProjector logo Another interesting development is the synchronous engine offered by the new version of mProjector (2.0). What’s so important about a synchronous engine is the fact that you won’t need callbacks anymore. Usually, an fscommand is executed and sometime later the result is returned to Flash. What mProjector 2.0 does is halting the execution of the Flash player, sort out whatever command you gave it and the insert it in the current piece of ActionScript Flash was executing. Next, the player resumes playing. To a programmer this will look like any API command has an immediate result, eliminating the need of a callback to catch the result.

To sum up this very brief and most definitely not complete overview, here are some of the tools currently available:

  • Screenweaver (now available as an OSFlash project)
  • Flash Studio Pro, US$ 249 (Now also has ActionScript API. Features (limited) Mac OS X support)
  • SWF Studio, US$ 139 (Will feature API in upcoming 3.0 version)
  • mProjector, US$ 299 (Has API and synchronous engine)

One last question that comes to mind: why in the h*ll didn’t Macromedia yet create a projector tool temselves? It seems a bit strange that they ignore a pretty big market. They have full control over the Flash Player, so it seems no biggie for them to create the ultimate cross-platform projector creator. UPDATE: they did and it’s called Adobe AIR

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