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

[chris.campbell]

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

[miragevideo]

I want to also add my support to Flash Builder upgrades.  really just bug fixing fo rthe memory leak that causes so many crashes (usually shortly before a critical deadline!)  If not fixing, at least raising the memory limits to make it crash less often.

Please keep AIR alive, I really love the language and the environment.

[ASWC]

You can raise yourself the memory, it won't prevent crashes but they will happen way less often.

[Born2code]

I also want to add that Adobe really has a gold mine on its hands, AIR.

It is still by far the best cross platform / GPU powered dev environment and I just wish Adobe would spend more money marketing AIR properly, as many devs are simply not aware that AIR is superior in many ways to HTML5, Unity and other cross OS runtimes today.

So maybe now that's flash is out of the way, Adobe can really start marketing AIR for the awesome platform it is.

Sean

[mattr8755445]

Sad to see Flash go, but this was expected for a long time now.

This is good news for my AIR games on Steam though! If AIR continues to get new features, I may end up using "Flash" for some time still.

Thanks for finally getting this road map out! I feel very relieved after years of uncertainty.

[eduardo12fox]

For dews
I understand dews that Apache Flex is not available for a business application. Another problem is: Do you really believe that AIR will continue? It may end sooner or later.

[dews]

eduardo12fox  wrote

For dews
I understand dews that Apache Flex is not available for a business application. Another problem is: Do you really believe that AIR will continue? It may end sooner or later.

The Flex framework is still a viable platform for a business application.  It's just that Stage3D is really the way to go, so that's Starling and the UI components from Feathers, in my opinion the better option.

The Apache Flex team have been working on a port to HTML5/JS that's really promising, so you can still code using the Flex Framework and use Apache FlexJS to output your APP into HTML5/JS and voila you have a Web APP that is no longer reliant on the Flash plugin.

As far as my belief in AIR - I honestly do believe in the future of AIR.  As born2code said:

Born2code wrote

It is still by far the best cross platform / GPU powered dev environment and I just wish Adobe would spend more money marketing AIR properly, as many devs are simply not aware that AIR is superior in many ways to HTML5, Unity and other cross OS runtimes today.

I couldn't agree more.  Now that Flash is out of the way this may free Adobe up to start a more aggressive marketing campaign. Perhaps a new name for AIR to get away from Flash completely? If developers actually knew how good AIR was we'd start to see the community grow in a huge way, particularly when support for wearables is on the table. There are so many ECMAScript coders out there - if they only realized what they were missing with AS3.

[Harbs.]

dews  wrote

Now that Flash is out of the way this may free Adobe up to start a more aggressive marketing campaign. Perhaps a new name for AIR to get away from Flash completely?

I hope the team at Adobe seriously considers this.

[aellerts2]

Hi Chris,

Thank you for keeping us informed. I see in the roadmap that VR/AR is on the list. This is good news. Can you elaborate what that might look like further?  Also, can Adobe please begin serious promotion of AIR again? I am not dismayed by the announcement because I think your team has done a good job with translating Animate to a web standards output tool. The Web as we have known it is fading away anyway. It is clear that AR is the next Web--and that it will supplant our current mobile experiences. PLEASE, get some of your talented team to blue sky something wonderful in AIR and AR, and then promote it everywhere. Here is an opening for again making the tool a leader in the field of emerging interactive experiences.

[KramSurfer2]

Thanks for this update!

[marchbold]

Hey Chris,

Great to hear the commitment to AIR!

Love to hear more on the VR/AR plans!? We've invested a bit in this side of AIR already so really interested in what the runtime will be providing!     

[Ruly]

I have several android air app for education,.. it's download my swf module regularly.. so after the death of flash player, will SDK can publish SWF file for my Android AIR App?

[santanuk76005047]

I really loved a few features listed here and looking forward for upcoming release!

• Support for 64-bit AIR – Windows Captive Only
• Support for the latest SDK on iOS 11 and Android O
• VR/AR support for AIR apps
• ANE support for Swift on iOS (WOW!)
  

Thank you!

[ljb2411]

I knew this day was coming, but it was still sad news. I am so grateful for my time creating content for Flash. My first introduction to the Flash world was Flash 4. Flash and ActionScript made me want to be a programmer. After using it, I actually changed my degree to CS. Thanks for all of the work Macromedia and Adobe team members! I still develop AIR apps and hope it continues to have a bright future. Are there any plans to update Flash Builder? Maybe it could get a name change to AIRBuilder. There have been a lot of updates to Eclipse that would be nice to have in Flash Builder. I'm excited for ANE support for Swift. Keep up the good work!

[ShaunOverton]

chris.campbell​ Can we expect any improvements to CPU rendering / the classic DisplayList for Adobe AIR (given that its from the flash core, is there now going to be an opportunity to improve those areas that are shared)? If not, are there plans to make development with Stage3D or similar as easy as it is to do now with Vector based design from Animate/Flash Professional? I ask as I represent a non-profit project that has worked with Flash and more recently AIR for many many years now and Vector based drawing is extremely important to us. Alternatively, our only option is to move to HTML5 which we really don't want to do given the disruption to our current workflow.

In addition, we feel that Flash/AIR is great and we want to see it to get better and to grow. Without it, our long-standing project would be dead.

[rewb0rn]

chris.campbell​ We would pledge what I consider a substantial amount of money to Air if we get an HTML target in return (say 5 digits a year), and we are probably not the only ones. Feel free to contact me if that is something you would like to discuss further.

Kind regards,
Ruben

[Colin Holgate]

Shaun, when it comes to mobile apps there isn't any reason to use CPU mode. Use Direct mode instead. It doesn't have to only be used when doing Starling/Stage3D work, it's good to use for pure CPU displaylist. In addition to what it can do with the GPU, it has a fast blitter, to send the regular displaylist layer to the GPU of the device.

So, Direct is already the super performance CPU mode you want.

[ShaunOverton]

Thanks for your comments, though I forgot to mention we develop for AIR Desktop as well as Android. And while Starling is great, using the lower level APIs kind of defeats the original purpose of Flash/AIR IMO. We like to go straight from Flash Professional/Animate CC to SWF at the click of a button. Additionally, the main reason we work with the old school Vector rendering is because we don't ever want to be limited by a devices resolution. One can spend a lot of time developing an app or game for a specific device, only to have a new one come out with twice the specs thus making the previous work void.

What we would like to see is either the original CPU renderer greatly improved. OR make GPU rendering much easier by hiding (but not limiting access) all the nitty gritty with using Stage3D and doing it all (if not most) from Animate.

(I'd also like to see sounds on the timeline being fixed too).

[ASWC]

Won't have much effect for him since as he said they work with heavy vector based graphics, direct rendering in that case is the worst rendering possible.

[PippoApps]

Shaun I do use AIR for cross-platform complex apps and games using regular DisplayList in GPU mode. Works like a charm if you take the correct measures. It is not an Adobe choice but an intrinsic limitation in devices power rendering with CPU. Something that desktop computers do not suffer. With some serious bitmap optimization you can deploy wonderful apps that perform very well without starling/feathers.

[ASWC]

That is correct, GPU mode is the most versatile of all and used the right way can still provide very good performance on mobile device. I have apps that used to run very well on IPad1 using GPU when DIRECT mode performance on same device was awful without mentioning the heavy loading times and very limited memory. A huge part of the problem was the Starling framework, very slow, poorly developed with huge memory needs, later on I developed my own stage3D based 2D framework that ran 3 times faster and no memory leaks.

[TeotiGraphix]

ASWC  wrote

A huge part of the problem was the Starling framework, very slow, poorly developed with huge memory needs, later on I developed my own stage3D based 2D framework that ran 3 times faster and no memory leaks.

So where is it? I find it interesting you have to bash Starling and for the second time say you do all this stuff, but where is it?

Starling may have been slow "back then" but it's plenty fast now and completely different, so stop bashing it if you don't use it right now.

I along with others are completely happy using an OS framework that actually exists and is maintained.

[chaky]

Yes,

I would also like to see another 2D framework that is faster than Starling. Especially if it is 3X times faster.

[Colin Holgate]

I have made two Starling based mobile apps (though not recently), and I'm skeptical about something that is 3X performance. Especially as iOS is capped at 60 fps, and I'm getting 60 fps with Starling. Getting 180 fps where you only see 60 fps updates would be hard to quantify.

I agree though that GPU is a better mode. I get 60 fps with that too, and can use regular display list. But then I also use regular display list with Starling too, you can overlay anything on Stage3D and the Stage3D part continues at 60 fps. The display list bit takes a moment to appear though, but it works ok. It's much easier to do complex dialog boxes with display list than with Starling. I don't know Feathers enough to say whether that would solve the issue, but for elaborator unique graphics I would still use display list.

[TeotiGraphix]

I released this app;

Lil Drum Machine Demo - Android Apps on Google Play

In Feb, ratings and general comments tell it all. That is a very simple app, I have one I am releasing soon that is full piano roll, massive graphics, audio etc.

This is ALL done with Feathers and Starling. LDM probably could perform better now that I have learned a couple tricks from heavy processing. I have an audio engine and communicating with C++ all in that app using native extensions.

So I hear people say Starling sucks, haha yeah whatever, let's see what you made with it.

[chaky]

Little Drum Machine app has a great sound quality. Good work!!!