A Look at Flash Tools for the Linux Environment FLASHFLASH ININ LINUXLINUX Sasan Saidi

COVER STORY Linux Flash Options

A Look at Flash tools for the Linux environment FLASHFLASH ININ LINUXLINUX Sasan saidi, www.sasan.tv

Flash is today’s tool of choice for animated, interactive web content. But Flash and Linux are worlds colliding. We'll show you the current crop of Open Source Flash

authoring solutions. BY JENS FRANKE

lash began in 1995, when Future- still the tool that can’t do anything apart And IBM chose Flash as the output Wave presented a forerunner from create annoying intros and flashing format for displaying the content of so- Fknown as FutureSplashAnimator. banners, but that’s a pity, because Flash called Rich Internet Applications on its One year later, Macromedia acquired has come of age. Major IT players are OpenLaszlo open source platform. FutureWave, publishing the first version implementing tools for creating Flash- You may be wondering about some of of Flash in 1997. based user interfaces, such as such as the problems associated with Flash, as Most Flash movies are created in the SAP’s next version of NetWeaver [2]. enumerated by usability guru Jakob Macromedia Flash authoring environment. The file format used with Flash Flash Teething Trouble movies is known as Small Web Format Giving the back button its usual Search engine friendly Flash pages: (SWF). The Macromedia Flash Player [1] function back: http:// codeazur. com. br/ stuff/ fugsp/ has a virtual monopoly on playing SWF http:// www. actionscripts. org/ tutorials/ Flash accessibility support heading in files; according to Macromedia, the fig- intermediate/ Enabling_a_back_button_ the right direction: http:// www. ure is about 98 percent. Of course, these within_flash/ index. shtml http:// weblogs. macromedia. com/ macromedia/ macromedia. com/ cantrell/ archives/ 2005/ figures can vary depending on the kind accessibility/ features/ flash/ 06/ deep_linking_in. cfm#more of users you ask. There is no genuine Flash and CSS support, a promising Mouse wheel support: start: http:// www. actionscript. org/ alternative to the Macromedia player at http:// www. communitymx. com/ content/ tutorials/ beginner/ css_in_flash/ index. present. The only hopes of that changing article. cfm?cid=E81CE shtml in the future lie with the free GPLFlash- Right click menu: W3C compliant integration of SWF files: Player, where work is currently under- http:// www. metamorphozis. com/ http:// www. alistapart. com/ articles/ way on Version 2. tutorials/ flash_customized_right_ flashsatay/ click_menu_in_flash_mx_2004_tutorial. Printing content from Flash pages: http:// Flash Today shtml www. actionscript. org/ tutorials/ beginner/ Flash has continued to advance for eight Show your code to the open source the_printjob_class/ index. shtml years, and it is generally regarded as community: Changing the font size of an application: today’s market leader in the field of mul- http:// weblogs. macromedia. com/ mesh/ http:// www. asual. com/ enflash/ demos. archives/ 2005/ 04/ adding_a_view_s. cfm html timedia authoring. For many, Flash is

38 ISSUE 59 OCTOBER 2005 WWW.LINUX - MAGAZINE.COM advertisement

Figure 1: The most widespread developer environment for Flash right now is Macromedia Flash MX 2004 Professional.

Nielsen in his article at [3]. KToon has the ambitious Many people do not realize aim of combining traditional that Macromedia and Nielsen and digital animation tech- entered a strategic partner- niques within a single tool. ship to remove the continu- If you prefer a traditional ing usability problems with approach, you will feel at Flash applications. home working in the illustra- See the box titled “Flash tion module; those of you Teething Trouble” for a sum- who prefer to work in a digi- mary of some Flash problems tal environment will choose and links to sources on the the animation module. web for more information. When you launch KToon, And read on for a summary you will note that it is a pal- of the some of the Flash tools ette oriented program (Figure available for Linux users. 2) with movable palettes for colors, brushes, scenes, and KToon Animation the exposure sheet. The expo- Toolkit sure sheet (Figure 3) is only KToon [4] is an animation shown in the illustration toolkit from Toonka Films. It module and follows the onion was released under the Gen- skin principle. Depending on eral Public License (GPL) and whether you have selected the current version is 0.7 the previous or subsequent Beta. The tool requires QT frames, you see a slightly 3.3.2 [5], the cross-platform transparent version of the C++ framework by Norwe- elements, which is a big help gian software manufacturers in creating frame-by-frame Trolltech. animations.

The Future of Flash Macromedia has signed a memorandum of understanding with Adobe that will form the basis for the sale of Macromedia in fall of this year. There is no risk of the deal collapsing, and equally no danger of the Flash platform being discontinued. Flash is definitely one major reason for Adobe’s interested in Macromedia. Version eight of the authoring environment and player are expected in the fall. Macromedia currently has the ambitious goal of establishing itself on the mobile device market. Agreements on the implementation of a Flash Lite player were signed with Sam- sung and Nokia this spring with an eye to promoting the propaga- tion of Flash technology. COVER STORY Linux Flash Options

for the Win- dows platform – for Linux. They reached the final of the contest after 3 months’ development work. But ever since, things have been fairly quiet down at F4L [6]. This said, the anal- yses and stud- ies published Figure 3: The KToon recently look exposure sheet gives quite promis- you a clear overview of ing. The user layers and animation interface looks Figure 2: The KToon interface uses a number of palettes. steps. more like Mac- romedia Flash The animation module (Figure 4) has mation frame by frame in bitmap format, than KToon and feels more intuitive a timeline instead of an exposure sheet, which has a nasty impact on the size of from the user’s point of view. just like the one you might be familiar the resulting files. The KToon team pro- Unfortunately, the only publication with from Macromedia Flash. You’ll also mises many improvements and advances thus far has been a Beta version 0.2. It find a toolbox, and let’s not forget the for the coming version. Among other has very little in the way of productive drawing area itself. The menu entries things, the aim is to add an effects mod- functionality and does not support the include a bar with icons for cross-module to KToon and to improve the tool’s creation of key frames or SWF file ule functions, such as opening and sav- ability to work with vectors. exports. Thus, the program can hardly ing files. The second part of the bar be viewed as a genuine alternative to changes to reflect the current module. F4L – Flash for Linux KToon at present, although the begin- The interface creates a good initial In 2003, IBM initiated a programming nings look promising. impression, except for the fact that some competition for Linux. A small team cen- icons look overdone, and the fact that it tered around Özkan Pakdil set the target FAME – for Experts Only can be difficult to guess the functions of programing a useful animation tool – Open source is a very big topic among hiding behind the icons at first glance. something similar to Macromedia Flash Flash developers at present. In many Thankfully, KToon has useful tooltips to help you out. Version 0.7 gives you a choice of interface languages from Spanish, French, and English. If you feel up to adding a localized version, the developers will certainly appreciate your help. You’ll find a language template (file extension .ts) on the KToon website. The template is actually an XML file that you can edit yourself. Although you can’t actually integrate the localized file yourself, you can send it to the KToon development team, and chances are it will be in the next version. KToon has a fairly rudimentary feature set at present. For example, the tool’s ability to create complex vectors, one of Flash’s major strengths, is very limited. Also, KToon can export the Flash programming language Actionscript. Although KToon can store files in SWF format, the tool actually exports the ani- Figure 4: Use the animation module to organize the flow of the animation.

40 ISSUE 59 OCTOBER 2005 WWW.LINUX - MAGAZINE.COM Linux Flash Options COVER STORY

blogs, the FAME [7] acronym leads to information concerning a platform inde- pendent developer environment for Flash. Decrypted, FAME refers to the fol- lowing components: Flashout + ASDT + MTASC + Eclipse. Most users have heard by now of Eclipse, an open development platform that is customizable using plug-ins. ADST is the Actionscript Development Tool for Eclipse. Actionscript, the programming language of the Macromedia Flash developer environment, is based on the ECMA 4 standard. MTASC is the abbreviation for Motion Twin Action- script 2 Compiler, the first open source compiler for Actionscript. MTASC offers benefits such as extremely quick com- pilation of Actionscript classes and direct generation of SWF files without requiring Macromedia Flash. The gang Figure 6: The AOL Top 11 (http:// music. channel. aol. com/ top11/ main. adp) uses Flash to of four is completed by Flashout. The combine video content, information, and interactive elements. Flashout Eclipse plug-in supports view- ing of compiled SWFs within the Eclipse front-end for the FAME environment is the success of your web site. If you only development platform. Additionally, the released. use Flash for window dressing, without Flashout plugin provides more in the having anything to back up the show, line of debugging options than you'll Alternatives: CrossOver the whole thing is likely to backfire, and find with the the Macromedia authoring Office you are likely to annoy your visitors. But environment. CodeWeavers CrossOver Office [8] Flash is so feature-rich that it is up to The FAME developer environment launches Windows programs on Linux. concept designers, graphic artists, and already supports authoring of web appli- This gives you a workaround that will at developers to put Flash to meaningful cations at the professional level. Many least run Macromedia Flash MX rela- and targeted use. Flash developers use the Open Source tively reliably. Until native Linux solu- With the exception of the FAME pack- FAME package as a supplement or alter- tions such as KToon or F4L are brought age, Linux lacks a mature Flash tool, and native to Macromedia products. How- up to scratch, CrossOver Office may be non-programmers will have a hard time ever, the FAME environment is not suit- the only genuine alternative for Linux with Flash authoring on Linux. Like able for graphic artists or end users at users without programming skills to many other Open Source projects, KToon present. There is no GUI plug-in to sup- create meaningful Flash animations and F4L need ambitious and skilled port non-programmers, so you must seek helpers to drive development onward. ■ FAME at your own risk. However, thanks Conclusions to the increased popularity of FAME, it is The current Flash Player version 7 can INFO just a matter of time until a suitable combine text, sound, images, and video [1] Flash Player: http:// www. macromedia. in a very impressive way com/ go/ getflashplayer to create new realms of [2] SAP: http:// www. sap. com// company/ experiences. Today’s press/ press. epx?PressID=4519 Internet is both a source [3] Flash – 99% Bad: http:// www. useit. of information and a pre- com/ alertbox/ 20001029. html sentation platform. [4] KToon: http:// ktoon. toonka. com Regardless of whether [5] QT: http:// www. trolltech. com/ you approve of this products/ qt/ index. html development, there are [6] Flash For Linux: no signs of turning back, http:// f4l. sourceforge. net as the Internet gives [7] FAME: http:// www. osflash. org/ doku. manufacturers a new and php?id=fame speedy means of adver- [8] CrossOver Office: http:// www. tising their products. codeweavers. com/ products/ cxoffice/ Figure 5: The virtual knee operation by Edheads (www. Of course, I must [9] Flash-Plattform: http:// www. edheads.org/ activities/ knee/ ) demonstrates the interactive emphasize that Flash is macromedia. com/ platform/ potential of Flash. definitely not the key to