Short: Flash (SWF) format file player v. 1.4 Author: 72207.463@compuserve.com (Mike Steed) Uploader: imax9 narod ru (Maxim Ilyin) Type: gfx/show Version: 1.4 Architecture: ppc-morphos MOS: ---- It is a MorphOS port (25-Apr-2008) by Maxim Ilyin. Thanks to Mike Steed for collaboration. Visit the homepage at http://www.rekom.ru/~imax Introduction: ------------- FlashPlayer is a player for Adobe's "flash" interactive animation format, also known as SWF. The flash format was originally invented as a very bandwidth-efficient means for delivering animation across the Internet. It has since grown into an interactive presentation format, complete with its own scripting language. Like all flash animation players for the Amiga, FlashPlayer is based on the open-source SWF library by Olivier Debon. FlashPlayer has made many improvements to the original SWF library, and has wrapped around it a full-featured GUI. However, despite the improvements, FlashPlayer still suffers many of the limitations of the SWF library, including limited or missing support for many of the newer additions to the flash format. The source code for both FlashPlayer and the modified SWF library are available in a separate archive, FlashPlayerSrc.lha. Features: --------- - Fairly complete support for Flash 1 through Flash 3 formats Most of these older animations will play pretty much as intended. - Limited support for Flash 4 and up Does not support scripting, so while it will not malfunction when presented with a newer animation, it may not play it as intended. Newer animations may play just fine, however, if they don't use any of the unsupported features. - Uses render.library and guigfx.library (included) for best image quality Can play flash animations on any screen, from two color low-res OCS to 24-bit graphics cards. Supports OCS, ECS, AGA, CyberGraphics, and Picasso 96. Uses dithering for improved display quality on color-mapped screens. - Public and custom screen support Can open on the Workbench or on a web browser's screen, or can open its own screen, in any resolution or format. - Uses AHI for flexible audio output Plays sound on any hardware for which AHI has a driver. Supports 16-bit audio. - Uses openurl.library for browser support Allows any supported browser to visit web pages linked to by a flash animation. - Built-in decoding of MP3 sounds Contains an integrated version of the open-source MAD MP3 decoder; does not require mpega.library or other external decoder. - Support for alternate hardware platforms Because it does not depend on native Amiga hardware for graphics or sound, FlashPlayer works with Amiga emulators and with the latest Amiga hardware (it has been ported to MorphOS with minimal effort, and runs under emulation on UAE and the AmigaOne). - Runs from Workbench or shell Can be run in any of the normal ways, including via the WB 3.5+ default icon system (default icon included), and as a MIME-driven player for a web browser (instructions included). If run on the Workbench screen, files can be played by dropping them on the FlashPlayer window. - Mouse, menu, and keyboard control of the flash animation Control the animation with the mouse, or use the keyboard and menus to stop, start, frame advance, and rewind the animation. Zoom in on the animation, and scroll around within the zoomed-in frame. - Configurable, for maximum flexibility Uses tooltypes or command-line arguments to set the screen type, the playback quality, the size and scale (enlarged or reduced) of the animation, enable or disable sound, streaming sound, looping, and url support, adjust the sound buffer size, and set the diagnostic output level. New for version 1.4: -------------------- - FlashPlayer now supports morphing shapes, which are shapes that can morph between two different outlines/line styles/fill styles/colors/transparen- cies during the course of an animation. Morphing shapes can also serve as masks that allow parts of other shapes to become transparent. - Fixed a flaw that caused 24-bit lossless-compressed images to lose their transparency, causing opaque (usually black) boxes to appear around them. This affected a lot of animations. - Fifteen- and 24-bit lossless-compressed images are now displayed with much better color quality. Previously very simple color processing was used. This was usually adequate, as lossless compression is rarely used for photographic-quality images. But when it was used for photos, they looked poor. They're now much better. - Sprites, or small animations that play within the main animation, may now be used as mask objects. Previously, objects that were supposed to be masked by a sprite were invisible. - The swf library used by FlashPlayer now uses internal memory pools for many of its rendering operations. This speeds up the rendering of complex shapes (morphing shapes are often complex), and reduces memory fragmentation. - Some bugs and memory leaks under error conditions (typically, when running low on memory) were fixed. - The code that automatically increases FlashPlayer's stack size if it's been set too small was inadvertently left out of version 1.3. It's now back. Limitations: ------------ - Does not support many of the newer additions to the flash format Chief among these is the scripting language first added to Flash 4, and extended in newer flash versions. Some animations depend on scripting and will not run without it, while others use it only as an enhancement, and can still be viewed to some extent even without scripting support. - Missing support for some older features The SWF library does not fully implement all features of even the older flash formats. Many of these missing features have been added during the course of development of FlashPlayer. However some features, such as dynamic text, are still absent. - Resource-intensive While the flash files themselves are small, decoding and presenting them requires lots of memory and lots of processor cycles. A fairly high-end system is required to play any but the smallest and simplest animations, and even a 68060 is unable to play most animations at their intended speed (or to play streaming sound without dropouts). - Limited browser integration The flash format was really intended to be played from within a browser, using an integrated plugin. Lacking this ability, FlashPlayer can only act as an assistant to a browser, rather than as an integrated part of it. This makes viewing flash animations on the web much harder than it ought to be. Requirements: ------------- FlashPlayer runs under AmigaOS 3.0 and above. It requires guigfx.library and render.library, both included. It makes use of, but does not require, AHI and openurl.library. FlashPlayer requires a 68020 or better processor, with an FPU. FlashPlayer is not available for the PowerPC, as I don't have a PPC system to develop it on; however it runs under emulation on AmigaOS 4 and UAE, and has been ported to MorphOS. Author: ------- Mike Steed 72207.463@compuserve.com SWF library written by Olivier Debon; modified by Mike Steed