Flash for Linux
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Flash For Linux is an initiative to develop an open source application for Linux intending to be an alternative to Adobe Flash, a popular application for creating on-line and off-line media content.
Swf playback is available for Linux with Gnash and swfdec, though no .fla editor or IDE is yet available.
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[edit] F4L
The F4L project has halted development pursuant to intellectual property issues regarding the "Flash" product name and other trademark-oriented issues. F4L has transitioned the ambitious open source plane by resurrecting the UIRA project. Development plans include authoring capacity for 2D animation, and tweening, as-well-as output to the .swf and .fla file formats. Flash 4 Linux has recently become UIRA.
The project was being led by a Turkish University student, at the time of inception, by the name of Özkan Pakdil, who wanted to create a unique project for school. Over time, what had started as a simple project evolved into a full fledged application that was capable of authoring 2D animation and output publishing of SWF files. The application layout is very similar to Adobe Systems' Adobe Flash. UIRA hopes that being able to output in the .swf will become a realistic choice and competent alternative to Flash. UIRA aims to provide their product, in accordance to the Open Source Initiative, as a free project in the vein of Flash MX content authoring for the near future.
Development appears to have ceased however.
[edit] UIRA
UIRA was a project for a Linux alternative to the Adobe Flash IDE. UIRA intended to combine the resources and knowledge of the F4L project and the Qflash project, both of which were Open Source applications that provided (to some extent) an alternative to the proprietary Adobe Flash. UIRA is a recursive acronym for UIRA Isn't a Recursive Acronym.
UIRA was free software, but was never truly completed. According to its creators, UIRA aimed at doing a bit more than only Flash and was aiming at providing a full solution for creating interactive multimedia content. It reached a stage of being no more than a shell of a UI with limited functionality.
Due in part to the adoption of the DADVSI law in France, the UIRA project was shut down in January 2008, according to the project's page in SourceForge.
Because the original developers no longer have the time to work on UIRA, they are now calling on people to revive/continue the project from where it left off. Anyone interested in continuing the development of this project is asked to contact one of the original developers at their homepage.
[edit] Related alternatives
The remaining desktop based open source Flash creation software includes Ajax Animator, Clash, OpenOffice.org Draw, KToon, Salasaga, and Synfig, but these applications aren't yet finished and don't have full support for the Flash IDE; most of them only draw images and lack script support.
However, there is a compiler called swfc which generates SWF files from script files, with support for ActionScript and SVG line tags. It is currently the most complete alternative for building Flash content in Linux, despite being entirely script-based and not having a GUI.
Another compiler for script files to .swf is Ming. Ming has bindings for popular scripting languages such as php and python. The author of libMing says that the name is not connected to Ming, the arch-enemy of Flash Gordon, and says he just likes the name.
OSFlash, a site dedicated to Open Source Flash resources and discussions, was launched in 2005 and has achieved a wide base of support in the Open Source community. Hosting well over 60 separate flash-related projects as at November, 2009, the site acts as a central 'watering hole' for locally hosted teams as well as many other projects hosted elsewhere.
[edit] See also
- Ajax Animator (animation IDE)
- KToon (2D animation)
- Gnash (flash viewer)
- Ming (library to create SWF files)
- SWFTools (uses Ming)
- MTASC (free ActionScript compiler for SWF files)
- Pencil (2D animation/sketching)
- Clash (fork for animation scripting)
- Lightspark (flash viewer)
- Qflash (inactive)
- Salasaga (targets eLearning)
- sswf
- haXe
- swfmill
- Synfig (2D animation)
- JITB (flash viewer)
