HTML Target for AIR (WebGL / WebAssembly)

[phonefusionryan]

@chris.campbell What are your thoughts about this?

There is a Feature Request on the tracker on Adobe https://tracker.adobe.com/#/view/AIR-4178275 

To me this is honestly THE #1 feature that Adobe should be working on. For so long I decided to stick with AIR/Flash because of it's ability to output to Android, iOS, Mac, Windows, and the browser... saying to clients "let me build you a true cross platform solution".   But with the CLEAR browser decline in support for the Flash Player, I have many clients saying the dreaded "so what about html5".

I believe if Adobe wants AIR to remain 1 of the top contenders in cross platform development this MUST happen.

Regardless of the votes that appear on the tracker, can someone from Adobe comment on this? Have you guys seen the flood of votes. Are you deciding? if you could just acknowledge you see it and are thinking about it, It would put so many people at ease.

[phonefusionryan]

So I've decided I will NOT be ignore on this issue. I will bump this thread every day from here on out until I get an answer

[Colin Holgate]

Something that seems wrong in your request is that AIR is just one of the publishing options from an ActionScript 3 project. That could be AIR for desktop, Android, or iOS. AIR isn't the overall publishing system itself.

Taking Adobe Animate as an example authoring environment, it can do those three AIR publishes, and it can also publish OAM for use in Muse and Dreamweaver, SWF Archive for use in After Effects, SWF for browser plugin playback, standalone projectors for Mac and Windows, HTML5 Canvas, HTML5 WebGL 2D, video for Premiere and other editors/compressors, and a few other custom formats.

ActionScript 3 can do so many things that can't easily be done in HTML5 that if you were to use AS3 for developing HTML5 you would need to make sure to only do things that can be translated to JavaScript. Imagine if Animate helped with that, and would only let you write code that can work in the published HTML5, that would help prevent you from trying to do features that can't work. That is effectively what CreateJS is, an AS3 style library that does quite a lot, but not everything that normal AS3 can do.

This isn't to say that you shouldn't keep requesting automatic conversion of all AS3 features to HTML5, I would love to be wrong about how hard that would be! Meanwhile, you do have some HTML5 options, where you can reuse a lot of what you needed to make the AS3 version.

[phonefusionryan]

Granted I hear you and agree, though I wasn't the one who created the request, I'm just someone who's trying to get it in as many faces as possible. Whether the right wording is used, i think the general idea of what it is has been conveyed enough to convince 400+ people to vote.

The feature request mentions that limitations would be acceptable, we just need the option.

Maybe I'm making a wrong assumption, but do you work with Adobe Colin Holgate? I see you post a lot and the MVP tag suggests at least a  somewhat connection to them. Do you know if they are aware of this or have seen it? I'm definitely open for the discussion but the main reason of this thread was to hopefully get some kind of ANYTHING response as to what they think about it.

Other the last 3 years I've been watching popular requests on the Bug Base get lots and lots of votes, but nothing happens. (Ex: Adobe Air Windows 8 Support  got literally over 650+ votes, and yet we NEVER got any official word or any response from Adobe).  https://tracker.adobe.com/#/view/AIR-3648920

I just want SOME KIND of response from Adobe saying they see it, so I can know whether or not they are ignoring it.

[rewb0rn]

Colin has voiced his skepticism about the feature a couple of times already, and I always like to disagree The strong part about Air is how easy it is to publish to all the different platforms like mobile and web through Flash. However Flash is clearly declining in popularity, so to maintain the ability to publish to mobile and web from one codebase, an HTML5 target is needed.

Adobe has acknowledged the feature request, an Adobe employee has commented in the feature request asking developers to continue to vote if the desire the feature. I don't think that means much though, they did the same in the Windows 8 support. Browse through the comments and you should find it..

[Colin Holgate]

I like disagreement! It can help improve your argument. In this case the problem is that although Adobe were able to make Flash Player in Objective-C for iOS, and Java for Android (or they use C++ for both, I'm not sure), to do the easy AIR publish to HTML5 they would need to create all of Flash Player in JavaScript, and that's the bit I think would be hard.

[phonefusionryan]

You're right Colin Holgate, it would be hard, but not impossible. Unity has done it.

[rewb0rn]

Haxe is doing it too, you can even load assets from a swf file into HTML5 if you use Haxe. The support is a bit weak though, so it would be nice to have Adobe stepping in and saving the day.

[Colin Holgate]

Unity and LiveCode are using Emscripten to playback without using a plugin. It's an ugly presentation with a large download overhead. It's nice as an option, but I don't think it's an ideal way to work.

[ruslans83675401]

How is this even related to JavaScript? We're talking about the WEBASSEMBLY target here! That's why we call it "AIR target for webassembly". In theory, C++ code can run in webasm, right? And AIR can kind of compile to C++ (you already mentioned this), so why can't AIR complie to webasm?? Again, in theory? Forget about JavaScript target, noone asked for that.

[phonefusionryan]

Adobe has acknowledge the feature request the way they acknowledge all feature request... They have 1 person chime in a few weeks after the request appears to say that people should keep voting and then that's it, you are right it doesn't mean much.

In this instance that was over 9 months ago when the request had a fraction of the attention it has now.

That's why I wanted to create this thread to see their opinion now that it's pretty clear the community wants it.... i mean literally besides the Windows 8 request that was ignored, what other request has this many votes? What is the vote count that would actually make them consider it?

[Colin Holgate]

Adobe have an Adobe Community Professional program, which historically would be the kind of people who would present Adobe tools at conferences, even though they don't work for Adobe. I'm not even sure why they invited me to be one of those, though I have shown Adobe tools (mainly Director and Flash Pro) at user group meetings a lot. My main contribution was answering questions in the forum, and fortunately for me a couple of years ago they put more emphasis on forum posts. These days you will see more posts from ACPs than there were a few years ago.

I got the MVP just from the number of questions I've answered, but I still am ACP too. The forum seems to let MVP override the ACP tag I would otherwise get. I also happen to be a moderator here too, but that's another story!

So, no, I don't work for Adobe, I just have an affliction that forces me to try and help people with problems.

There is something you could do to have more say in what is worked on, if you do sometimes use Adobe Animate. There isn't a prerelease program for AIR, but there is for Animate, and what you're asking for would be a change to Animate and not AIR anyway. So, see if you can join the prerelease program, then you get direct access to the Animate team, and a whole lot of other users who can help fine tune any of your suggestions.

Look at message 23 here:

Animate CC 2015.1 | March 2016 Update is now available!

Click on Mohan's icon and send him a private message about joining the prerelease. You could add a link to here as part of your explanation about why you want to join.

[zwetan_uk]

the issue AIR-4178275 HTML Target for Air (WebGL / WebAssembly) is dated from 08/03/2016 (August 2016)

the latest announcement WebAssembly consensus and end of Browser Preview is dated from 28 Feb 2017

People want a "silver bullet" that "magically convert their SWF into something that works on the web without a plugin"

and think "OMG WebAssembly *IS* the solution" while there is not even an initial version of the WebAssembly spec published yet

WebAssembly (the first instance, the MVP) is only supported in Chrome 57 and Firefox 52 since March 2017
Look at Chrome Platform Status for WebAssembly, MS Edge and Safari are still "in development"

translate: WebAssembly is not ready yet and not final
people should read the FAQ

[kennylerma]

I do believe the idea of this post is to produce an HTML TARGET from AIR.  Currently, WebAssembly is nowhere near ready for anything.  However, that doesn't mean Adobe shouldn't be at the forefront of exploring this option and getting feedback from the community. 

With that said, I also believe Adobe should also be working on an immediate javascript / WebGL target from AIR.  Of course it won't have everything that AIR does, but it could satisfy a large majority of businesses that are moving away from ActionScript due to a lack of this very feature.

Currently, Adobe's only effort is to provide a lackluster Animate export for Canvas and WebGL written in vanilla javascript.  No one working in ActionScript wants to re-write their entire codebase in javascript.

[phonefusionryan]

You're right Kenny, people just want ANY option for the browser besides the Flash Player. Just because Web Assembly is not yet ready does not mean Adobe shouldn't be looking into it as an option, if developers waited to only experiment with something when it was finished the web wouldn't be what it is today.

[zwetan_uk]

it is easy to say when it is not your own development ressources that are on the line

there are many other things more useful that the Adobe AIR Team could be investigating imho

[kennylerma]

Sure, I'm not managing the Adobe AIR team and that's irrelevant.  We are merely discussing what we think the AIR Team should focus on.  In my opinion, with everyone now looking to move away from flashplayer since mobile is dominating the browser space, mobile and html should be at the forefront of everything as targets from AIR.  If everyone continues to move away in favor of other tech meeting their needs then there won't be any AIR Team resources to manage.  Adobe needs to re-grip it's dominance in the browser space again as it did with flash player.

[ruslans83675401]

"many other things more useful that the Adobe AIR Team could be investigating" - name one please. Yes, webassembly is not on a production stage yet, but for how long? Modern browsers already shipped with webasm support, waiting for community feedback. Yes, not today, but in N years webassembly will be a standard, and the question is simple: WILL Adobe add another target for AIR to support that?

[ASWC]

And the answer is also very simple, not gonna happen. There will never be an AIR to html5 or an AIR to webassembly, period. AIR is being maintained until it is no longer necessary. The number of AIR/AS3 developers is now so small, this community is now so not active that I'm actually surprise Adobe has not already announced the end of AIR and AS3.

[hferreira80]

Do you forget to take the pills today?

[ASWC]

Why would you say something so offensive? I haven't insulted anyone, what gives you the right to insult me in those forums? I demand an apology or a disciplinary action from admins. Learn civility and manners.

[rewb0rn]

Hey ASWC,

you seem to be an experienced and well-traveled Air developer so I think it's fair to give you some honest feedback: You have raised your concerns about Air so many times that we all know by now that you lost all your faith in Adobe. Fair enough, but this is a very enthusiastic and active community, so don't be surprised that people get tired of your negativity that you let lose in every other thread without anyone asking. We got it, Air is doomed. But please don't stand in our sunlight, thanks.

[ASWC]

You are rationalizing insulting me on the ground that I have a different opinion, pitiful. Sorry I guess I'm old school since I don't want to insult people for having an opinion I disagree with but I guess nowadays everything goes ....

[Rarykos]

I'm not letting this go.

Unity has working webGL support. What does Adobe offer? Plain javascript like it was 2008. Dealing with the same problems, again.

And it's BARELY supported in Animate. I know, because I'm actually trying to work for clients making their interactive HTML content.

Oh the conversations I've had:
" I can't do this"

"This will take a lot of time"

...

For a couple of jobs I've switched to Unity. I can't create rich web content in Animate.

Adobe MUST create an HTML target for AIR if it wants to stay competitive.

Less and less people use AIR for mobile apps, other engines provide more functionality.

Why would anyone use Adobe AIR to create desktop apps? Come on, now.

And there's no follow up for web content. Clearly, Animate webGL support is more basic and LESS user friendly than AS2 10 years ago.

What are you doing Adobe?

[rewb0rn]

Yes, official HTML5 support for Air would be nice, but I have my doubts it will happen. In the meantime we are making very good experiences with Haxe and OpenFL. We are in the process of publishing our HTML5 exports now and we still compile to .swf that we wrap with Air for mobile and desktop. So we have one codebase (Haxe) that runs in HTML5 and all Air targets.

And if in the worst case Air support is dropped by Adobe in the future, we already have a roadmap to compile from Haxe to native targets.