Macromedia has released a beta version of the 8th incarnation of their web content player, Flash. This beta version is only available for Windows and Macintosh.
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yea we need more flash.... love those flash ads especially on the porn sites....
as you may be able to guess I do not install flash on anything, well windows and IE practically requires you to or nags you to death but thats about it and I dont use IE so no biggie...
flash should die a cruel death....
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Flash Blocker for FireFox - http://flashblock.mozdev.org/
quote:
"Flashblock is an extension for the Mozilla and Firefox browsers that takes a pessimistic approach to dealing with Macromedia Flash content on a webpage and blocks ALL Flash content from loading. It then leaves placeholders on the webpage that allow you to click to download and then view the Flash content."
you can configure it to always allow flash from certain pages as well.
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2005-06-29
"Instead of just downloading the file and checking the size you post twice about it here? Of course it's a typo."
true i could have downloaded it. Also in my comments i was clearly open to the fact that it is a typo, as stated in my first comment and in this line in the 2nd comment "If this is the case..."
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2005-07-06
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Too many Linux whiners, once again...
Didn't you read Macromedia's press release? This very early beta is not meant for users who want to test, it is for content developers who want to detect and report compatibility issues as early as possible.
There is no authoring software for Linux and therefore there is no need for a public beta of the Linux player at this time. There will be a public beta that is targeted at end users, but later, and it will, as always in the past, include the Linux player.
Macromedia cannot release an AMD64 player at this time because there are no Mozilla builds for AMD64! The Mozilla Foundation refuses to release builds for anything else than i686 for good reasons, i.e. support, and so does Macromedia. What should Macromedia validate such a player against? A self-compiled build or an unofficial one from Fedora or SuSE?
This is impossible because the player must work with official builds, but there are none! If you are unsatisfied, redirect your anger from Macromedia to the Mozilla Foundation because they are the ones who must do something. First the browser, then the plugins.
Furthermore, an AMD64-compiled browser is nonsense because it gives 0 (zero) advantages over an i686 one. i686 binaries run natively on AMD64, there is no "emulation". And something else: The player is written in C++, but we are right now in the middle of yet another Linux C++ ABI breach. If there will be another Linux player, it won't be version 7 because that would be incompatible with future Mozilla releases, it can only be a version 8, compiled with GCC 4.
And please don't ask for OpenSource again and again. That's useless. Macromedia sells the source code to licensees and will continue to do so. If you want OpenSource, implement it yourself, the specs are available, and if you want official support for other platforms, contact the Mozilla Foundation and ask them for Mozilla builds because Macromedia needs them to produce a player!
To summarise it once again: Macromedia has been supporting UNIX since 1999 (HP-UX, Solaris/SPARC, Solaris/x86 and Linux/x86), Macromedia will continue to do so, Macromedia will not open-source the player, Macromedia needs official Mozilla builds to validate the player against and Macromedia needs a frozen C++ ABI, please contact the Free Software Foundation and ask them to freeze their C++ ABI forever.
Member since:
2005-06-29
I agree, one thing that bugs me about Flash on Linux is the lack of a 64bit version of the plugin.
I own an Athlon64 box running Vidalinux 1.1 compiled for AMD64, and I have compiled FireFox but I have no flash support other than what GPL Flash offers.
Wonder if for Flash Player 8 there will be a 64bit version if its released for Linux.
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2005-06-29
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>They should release betas for Linux too since previous
>versions of the flash player didnīt run very well (bugs,
>some artifacts on the screen, flicker) on Linux. If they
>wonīt improve the quality of their Linux flash players
>they should drop it.
Yeah that was true a while back, but Macomedia released version 7 more than a year ago now, and the current version of Flash runs fine on Linux, and handles everyting I have ever seen thrown at it on a daily basis including lots of kids sites that our PC frequents which use Flash very-heavily like BlueClues, SesameStreet.
It also installs automatically and without any user intervention other than agreeing to the license in Firefox on Linux.
Member since:2005-07-08
Mostly Flash for Linux works ok. But I've seen a few Flash websites where I had difficulties using and loading the Flash content on Linux. I'm not 100% sure if the issues where related to the Flash browser-plugins for Linux or what? But I found out that those Flash sites did work very well when I tried them with MS Windows and IE. Also Opera seemed to have less problems with that Flash content than Firefox/Mozilla had.
One example that I can remember now: http://www.sithsense.com/flash.htm
Try that site with Firefox for Linux.
Maybe others have better experiences?
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One example that I can remember now: http://www.sithsense.com/flash.htm
Try that site with Firefox for Linux.
That site has some crappy web page code on it, looks like they are incorrectly calculating the screensize in their javascript code.. if you just display the flash file and skip their lame javascript it works fine.
Try this link to bypass all the javascript crap and just run the flash part of that site.
http://media.sithsense.com/live1/swf/base_31.swf
Runs fine in my firefox on linux and its kinda cool at that, too bad whoever wrote the web page wasnt that good at it.
Member since:2005-07-08
"That site has some crappy web page code on it, Try this link to bypass all the javascript crap and just run the flash part of that site.
http://media.sithsense.com/live1/swf/base_31.swf"
Seems like the old curse of the web: they've probably been testing that Flash site with IE only(?)
Thanks for the hint. I'll try that with Firefox. (Now I can challenge Darth Vader on Linux too... 
Hmmm... It seems like the guy hasn't quite finished his sith and/or jedi lessions yet, as the chap couldn't guess my thoughts... 
)
I've had difficulties with other Flash sites in the past too. But maybe they've got some similar code problems too, I dunno?
Member since:
2005-07-06
I find it pretty sad to see that Macromedia still neglects Linux so much. Not that I don't understand it, but it would just be *cool* if they did give Linux a fair chance.
Please Macromedia, be kind! Give one employee something to do in his spare time (or is there no Macromedia developer that uses linux in his spare time?) 
Member since:
2005-07-08
I hope that browsers and websites would start to use and support SVG more for Flash type of content.
I've nothing special against Flash - but unlike Flash SVG is an open standard not owened by a single company - which is always a Good Thing for a widely used technology and standard (just imagine if, say, HTML would be proprieatary technology). SVG with related open technologies and standards is also surprisingly flexible and capable to produce all sorts of eyecandy and multimedia. All we need is that browsers, editors, other programs etc. would start to support it better.
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SVG might seem cooler in the sense that it is not controlled by a single corp (btw, define "open", because I *think* the swf file specs are public).
But at the end of the day it gets down to this: there is no decent application for developing even the lamest SVG, while Flash MX is absolutely packed with features.
Member since:2005-07-08
"But at the end of the day it gets down to this: there is no decent application for developing even the lamest SVG, while Flash MX is absolutely packed with features."
Yeah, that's why I was hoping that people like software makers would start to support SVG better. Anyway, even developing some simple games (patience card games etc.) that use SVG and related technologies is not that difficult if you've studied SVG. But of course good editors can make all that much easier.
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SVG is cool and all, but it seems most implementations do not contain all the features (like fonts - a big one in my book) that you'd want to use, and the performance doesn't allow the same type of rich content that flash provides.
For simple diagrams and motionless vector images, yeah, i'd go with SVG, but for rich entertainment based sites (which is where flash is used mostly anyway) I'll stick with flash.
http://www.internettinyawards.com/
http://www.flashforwardconference.com/winners/winners_05ny.asp
Show me some SVG sites with that kind of awesomeness, and I'll believe that SVG can replace flash.
BTW, http://www.openswf.org used to be the place to get info about the swf file format, but it seems to just be parked right now. I'm not sure what's up with that.
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2005-06-29
One thing I was looking forward to with this new player is the work Macromedia would put in it. Player 7 was a slow piece of software when comparing algorithms between a player on Windows and a player on OS X. I haven't done extensive tests as of yet to discover the exact differences, but I did a couple of tests on my actionscripts and there is a large noticable difference!
Thanks,
Carl
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There's been practically no support for SVG in web browsers yet
I meant integrated (or user friendly / no difficult to install plugins needed) SVG support in web browsers. The openness of the SVG technology would make it easy to integrate SVG support to the browsers themselves. Something much more difficult with Flash.
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http://www.macromedia.com/software/flashplayer/maelstrom/
Aside from performance improvements, MM have supposedly dramatically improved text rendering quality, they've added support for realtime filter effects such as drop shadow, blurs, glows etc. They've added support for file upload/download and realtime video compositing. The player now supports GIF, PNG and progressive JPEG natively.
Performance has apparently been improved for both Actionscript execution and graphics rendering.
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2005-07-13
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I'm slightly anti-Flash as the only uses I've seen from it are ads. Nobody uses animated GIF:s anymore either, except ads...
I haven't really seen any serious use of Flash where it did something that other web techniques couldn't do just as well. Funny Flash animations don't count either, they could just as well be encoded into MPEG or similar.
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Have a look at: http://www.flashforwardconference.com/default.asp?Location=16,140,7...
Some people use flash to do some really unique interactive (or not) art pieces.
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Indeed. Flash can be used to create "rich internet applications," providing the functionality of a rich or thin client application inside a browser with greater interactivity than traditional Web apps can provide. Some of that functionality is starting to appear in Ajax, but one might argue that it's smoother and more "native" to Flash. I suppose Macromedia's problem is partly perception - many people don't realize what Flash can do and think of it only as an animation platform.
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I really do not see SVG and flash as competing technologies. Sure theoretically at some point in the future they will compete, but for what is available today they serve different roles.
Flash is great for little animations. It has the best tools for creating them, it has the people trained to create them. It offers a more complete set of features (compared to what SVG has been implemented so far), and artists do not have to worry about compatibility with different implementations.
SVG is getting into the web from a different angle. If you read about how browsers like firefox, konqueror, and safari are implementing SVG you will see that they allow it to be mixed in within an xhtml document. This means that unlike flash SVG is not trapped in a box on a webpage. Web developers can mix some vector graphics into their web pages as they see fit.
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"I really do not see SVG and flash as competing technologies"
Not on the web but flash lite and SVGT are certainly going head to head in the mobile world. Flash lite had a much better featureset but has some disadvantages because they are the only company providing it. With the release of SVG 1.2 and SVGT 1.2 the features are about the same.
Most of the SVG animation software is aimed at the mobile market, since this is where SVG is actually being used. Both Ikivo Animator ( http://www.ikivo.com ) and beatware mobile designer can create animations. They both were geared toward SVG 1.1 so they are certainly missing stuff that flash has. But the gap is narrowing. 
Checkout SVG.org for just a small list of mobile phones that support SVGT. I think many will be surprised by how many phones support but it don't advertise the fact. (yet)
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2005-07-13
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2005-07-11
"There is no authoring software for Linux and therefore there is no need for a public beta of the Linux player at this time. There will be a public beta that is targeted at end users, but later, and it will, as always in the past, include the Linux player."
even there is no authoring tool with gui for linux there are very good development solutions:
for example:
http://mtasc.org/
and/or
http://iterative.org/swfmill/
* MTASC is the first ActionScript 2 Open Source free compiler. It can compile large number of .as class files in a very short time and generate directly the corresponding SWF bytecode without relying on Macromedia Flash or other tools
* swfmill is a tool to process Shockwave Flash(TM) (SWF) files. It can convert SWF from and to an XML-dialect called "swfml", which is closely modeled after the SWF file format.
so you could find people who would like to try new flash player on floss platforms.
there is no need to be smart ass advocating corporate software. when you are smart ass at least advocate free software
