Hello AIR developers,With the news today regarding Flash Player, I'm sure many of you have questions regarding AIR and its future roadmap. Let me start by saying that today's announcement was not about AIR, and instead focuses entirely on Flash Player and the browser plugin environment. Adobe remains committed to AIR and we believe it continues to be a great desktop and mobile development platform.Many of you have asked for a roadmap update. We hope to have our official Flash Runtime roadmap updated soon, but until then I wanted to share some of the features we'd like to accomplish in our upcoming releases. As always, this list may change as we receive feedback from the community.Support for 64-bit AIR – Windows Captive OnlyAIR SDK installer on WindowsDesktop async texture uploadDirectX11 support for AIR desktopIncrease the GPU memory texture limitImproved monitor and resolution settings for AIR DesktopGPU render mode for AIR DesktopSupport for the latest SDK on iOS 11 and Android OASTC Support for mobileVR/AR support for AIR appsANE support for Swift on iOSMETAL bindings for Stage3DMotion detection for Android devicesWe've also been following a feature request thread on the Starling forums. We wanted to get your feedback on some of the items outlined by the community. If you'd like to provide additional input, please take a minute and take this three question survey so we can better understand what folks would like to see in future releases.Community AIR Feature Requests Survey

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Locked by Moderator, Not on subject anymore,AIR Roadmap Update

Forum|Forum|8 years ago
July 25, 2017
72 replies
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Hello AIR developers,

With the news today regarding Flash Player, I'm sure many of you have questions regarding AIR and its future roadmap. Let me start by saying that today's announcement was not about AIR, and instead focuses entirely on Flash Player and the browser plugin environment. Adobe remains committed to AIR and we believe it continues to be a great desktop and mobile development platform.

Many of you have asked for a roadmap update. We hope to have our official Flash Runtime roadmap updated soon, but until then I wanted to share some of the features we'd like to accomplish in our upcoming releases. As always, this list may change as we receive feedback from the community.

Support for 64-bit AIR – Windows Captive Only
AIR SDK installer on Windows
Desktop async texture upload
DirectX11 support for AIR desktop
Increase the GPU memory texture limit
Improved monitor and resolution settings for AIR Desktop
GPU render mode for AIR Desktop
Support for the latest SDK on iOS 11 and Android O
ASTC Support for mobile
VR/AR support for AIR apps
ANE support for Swift on iOS
METAL bindings for Stage3D
Motion detection for Android devices

We've also been following a feature request thread on the Starling forums. We wanted to get your feedback on some of the items outlined by the community. If you'd like to provide additional input, please take a minute and take this three question survey so we can better understand what folks would like to see in future releases.

Community AIR Feature Requests Survey

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sfxworksTrue

Known Participant

Case example: Raspberry Pi moderators. They modded my entire discussion out of hate for the environment when I was asking how to put it on the Pi back in the day. Everyone is so triggered that by that word it's hilarious.

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sfxworksTrue

Known Participant

But playing an SWF needs to remain in AIR for future project purposes.

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sfxworksTrue

Known Participant

TBH if flash was just renamed its bad rep would all go away. People are just that dumb and the technology has dramatically improved.

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pol2095

Inspiring

Flash is heavily optimized vs other technology (html...).

It is planned to add anti-aliasing for Stage3D on Android ?

Thanks

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lgabrielmf

Participant

I'll tell my story. A couple of years back I had to choose a technology to develop a desktop solution for my project.

I had some experience with Flex before and after studied the possibilities I came up with the conclusion that AIR was the way to go. So I've kicked off the project in it. Some time later some friends started to state that it was a wrong decision and that I should step back and migrate to some Javascript Technology. I refused. Simply because I do believe in AIR as the best, not only for desktop, but as a cross platform either.

And I must say that after reading all this thread I am more confident than ever that it was the best decision. And I am confident that AIR will somehow emerge again and take the spot it deserves.

georgefrankperry

Participating Frequently

AIR is entirely underrated, and it is 100% due to the Flash association. Adobe needs to push AIR as its own platform and completely disassociate with the Flash brand. I love the AIR platform and believe it will continue on for many years to come. We have yet to see the best days of AIR development.

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PippoApps

Inspiring

I call it the "F" word. Never to be mentioned. It happened at least twice that a job at an advanced stage of negotiation, was refused by a client because a "friend who knows about development" told him that AIR is Flash and Flash is bad. Flash which allows us to play MAME in the browser, just like JavaScript sadly today's opinions most of times are based on hype and emotion and not on facts.

JoãoCésar17023019

Community Expert

[Wall of text warning]

Well, heated or not, I'm learning a lot of AIR/AS3/Adobe/Flash Player/Animate CC/Starling/Feathers behind the scenes stuff with all this discussion.

I've been using Flash/Animate/AS3 for years, but never have been an active member of this or any other forum or community project of AS3/AIR related subject.

I think is undeniable that there is this "Flash is dead" ghost scaring developers everywhere, but reading all the comments here I'm more confident than ever that AS3 and AIR are still one of the best technologies to cross platform development, despite this annoying JavaScript frameworks flood and developers preconception.

Like it or not, code using AS3 nowadays makes you look some kind of noob-weirdo that is stuck in the past.

We know this is entirely false.

I've been using, testing and researching several frameworks/engines and what I'm seeing is that AIR development still has the best balance between easy of usage, power, and versatility. I don't have the expertise to say if Flash Player or AIR are really secure, but I can say that, as already pointed here, it's totally possible to create really, really great apps and games with Animate CC/AIR/AS3 with great performance for mobile or desktop.

My suggestions are:

- Adobe should really invest more on Animate CC. Bringing more features for game developers. This last update didn't add anything, unfortunately. Again, Animate CC is one-of-a-kind. It can draw like any other software, it can animate, and code. No other tool I ever tested can do this or at least can do this as Animate does. But, of course, as with any other tool, it can and must be improved with new features.

- Adobe should encourage add-ons extensions developers. I always see people asking for features in the forum that could easily be implemented with a JSFL script or with custom panels, but there are so many few doing this kind of stuff and most of what has been produced is really old. I'm developing, for example, a tool to make the creation of game tiles inside of Animate more easily. I want to create a panel to help designers code their games and apps. And so on. Is not that hard and there is a lot that can be done. But there are pratically no incentive.

- I'm not really a experienced programmer so I think using and coding ANEs are really difficult. Why is there no official Adobe ANEs to access all kind of features of Google Play, for example? I know there are some great websites producing ANEs, like MyFlashLabs and Milkman, but they are too expensive and many like me can't afford to buy all of those goodies. I'm developing a game for Android devices that I can't launch because I'm waiting for the AIR team to solve a conflict between two third party ANEs I'm using.

- Adobe NEEDS to tell us that it cares about AIR/AS3 developers. What happened on Adobe MAX to tell us this? Nothing. Animate has been updated and a single word hasn't been said about this in the main show. Adobe seems to be focusing on print, photo, video, and UX, but game development? Nah, forget it.

- This forum... Maybe it's because I didn't look further, but it seems to me to be more of a Q&A type. Where are the community production? Like any other technology forums, where are the developers showcasing their finalized works, WIPs, giving tips, working in collaborative projects, discussing related and random stuff? A strong community makes a strong product.

- The OpenFL and HaxeFlixel communities seem to be making a great work. Why not give official support to these guys?

AIR, Animate, and AS3 are awesome, but underrated because of preconception, misinformation and lack of incentive.

TeotiGraphix

Participating Frequently

All so true, and all that has no answer.

Actually every point you have brought up some one else basically has in this thread. You seemed to get it all in one post.

IMHO being 1 developer. it's easy to justify "not using the coolest thing around" because I don't have to explain myself to anybody. So I continue to use AS3 and C++ native extensions to do my thing.

I tried researching other paths 2 years ago to give me the same cross dev experience with my audio apps, I came back to Feathers/Starling 2 times. Tried LIBGDX, no real strong UI framework, HTML5 haha yeah right performance and not a structure object graph, which for these types of UIs is fundamental.

I have been doing UI long enough to look at one and go, yeah that is HTML under the covers, I needed a UI not a browser html page.

I could also easily go to iOS with these apps but I am lazy right now, and that ease is because my UI/runtime is cross platform.

Being in a company or corporation, you are tied to the fad and not to reality, cold hard reality. Being independent you can use logic and reality and not have to justify your development decisions to people that want to say buzz words at the cost of development time.

All the issues you brought up are probably not going to be solved, my advice is do what you can and hope something changes. AIR is still getting updated, so it's good enough for now.

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PippoApps

Inspiring

I am willing to pay a fee to Adobe for AIR SDK in order to support development. I am afraid that if revenues only come from CC Animate subscribers will not be enough for them to support the platform.

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dews

Inspiring

Air 28 is up and check out the features!

For anyone to doubt the veracity of AIR as one of the top cross platform solutions out there - needs to take a look at what we now have available to us - Swift based ANEs anyone!

Very much looking forward to the roadmap and feeling secure in the knowledge we can build our APP confidently on AIR!