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

Report · Jul 25, 2017

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

Report · Nov 20, 2017

Where is it? None of my stuff is public anymore, it used to be though years ago but the donations were poor and it ended not being worth supporting anymore. Making your own 2D Stage3D framework is not that a big deal people, you can make a decent one in a couple of days top, making it run fast is more tricky and the goal is to save as much on method calls and use the right method call for the right situations, I can only guess Starling has improved but a few years ago it was still very slow and from what I could see difficult to upgrade (unless changing the entire display collection and gpu presenting). I know quite a few companies that have done theirs as well so I don't see what's so surprising about this. (btw FPS consistency is not how you measure speed execution). Btw I didn't say Starling sucks, I said it was slow and I'm not the only one to have said that.

Report · Nov 20, 2017

Starling rocks. But many of us developed their own engine, which of course is perfect for our own logic and apps. I believe like me many others just do not have the time and resources to make it public, document it and support it. When you develop AS since decades, it's kind of natural to build your own infrastructure.

Big gratitude to Starling/Feathers guys who maintain a great engine.

Report · Nov 20, 2017

PippoApps wrote
me many others just do not have the time and resources to make it public, document it and support it. When you develop AS since decades, it's kind of natural to build your own infrastructure.

I would rather spend my time on my application framework that is massively complex then recreate a wheel.

@ASWC I really don't understand you. I vaguely remember your handle back int he days, I was one of the top Flash Coders contributors as well.

What I don't understand is this axe you have to grind. Yeah I have said a couple things in this thread just to vent, but you are relentless, maybe it's a translation thing but why aren't you just moving on and canning any more wasted time with a language and run time that is dead?

Report · Nov 20, 2017

TeotiGraphix that's why I am talking about decades. My huge cross-platform application framework was logically initiated when AS1 was around, and now the AS3 version is over 12 years mature. There wasn't much wheel not to be invented back then

Anyway there is no need to argue. Let's leave pathological facebook vibes out of here and stay in topic AIR roadmap rocks.

(As well as Starling, Feathers, and each of our personal secret framework).

Report · Nov 20, 2017

Well again, I wasn't even close to arguing with you, I agreed.

I only stated "my" perception of a framework and how I use it. Startling and Feathers has allowed me as 1 developer to focus on audio apps for Android that get good reviews. My framework is audio and UI components, I have complex UI stuff that I just trust Josh's framework takes care of on the foundation end.

Why? Because Josh IS one of those guys that made his framework public, it may have been in the Adobe pocket but still, I knew Josh 10+ years ago and he gave us 10+ years of professional experience in Feathers. He has and is making it as fast and flexible as a framework like that can be.

Facebook? no, you got the wrong guy here.

Report · Nov 20, 2017

Some information and a heads-up...

I'm a moderator in the forums, and have personally allowed through some of the heated debate posts here. I think it's good to discuss alternatives, and bad to censor posts. I would rather you got upset at part of a post and angrily post a retort, than to stop you from seeing other people's opinions.

I worry though that if there ever is news about an AIR roadmap, that it will get completely lost here. I asked Chris Campbell if he could start a new topic when there is news. He says that things haven't really changed since his first post, and that some of what he talked about is being investigated. The next post would be when the list of features has been decided on, which hasn't happened yet.

So, this topic will be kept open for general discussion, but at some point there will be a new topic about AIR roadmap news.

Report · Nov 20, 2017

I apologize if I sounded like "one of those posts" but I was just standing up for devs that are not here to.

I will keep my business out of any further OT talk whether this or another post, it's just noise anyway.

Mike

Report · Nov 20, 2017

You weren't. I won't name names, but if I did, you wouldn't be on the list. It would in fact be a short list. Deduce what you want!

Please do keep involved, I've liked your posts.

Report · Nov 21, 2017

Thank you Colin, your are right, we brought this completely off-topic, I apologise. Looking forward to the definitive roadmap.

rewb0rn I definitely agree. Adobe should charge us for AIR professional use, in order to generate revenues that do not come only from Animate CC subscribers.

TeotiGraphix very neat your drum machine, I am going to use it. I am really curious about how you handled sound latency. I did a generative image/music app myself, but since there were latency problems at the time it could only generate ambient music.

Report · Nov 20, 2017

I am trying to be nice here, what you are not understanding is it doesn't matter what you think when it comes to frameworks and frameworks you haven't touched in years.

How can you just say random things and expect to be taken seriously? What did the above comment add other than saying you know how to program, which by now everyone that has read your comments understands this.

It's not about what is theoretical, I have a problem with people that talk about other peoples work and can't back it up. You performance comments should be regarding reality, not passed things that have no relevence with what people use today.

I only posted my app to show that there are no bottlenecks in Starling OR Feathers anymore, they are fast and well written frameworks.

The API, is very good, so stop talking about things that just confuse people, please.

Report · Jul 26, 2017

Adobe AIR is awesome! Especially when you guys have put so much effort in creating AGAL and optimizing for an endless list of different Android devices. AIR has a real value now. Only if you would make effort to improve Flash Builder 4.7 that is working great when it don't crash. Flash Builder 4.7 works great but it crashes too often.

Please make "Increase the GPU memory texture limit" a first feature that you will implement. Memory on the devices grow at astounding speed and mobile devices display resolutions are no joke either. And a limit of 512MB is really low today.

From a noob perspective it does not look like that will be a complicated feature and it can give us so much more freedom.

But just out of curiosity what are the problems of increasing memory limit. Why can't you just increase that flag to 1024 MB

Report · Jul 27, 2017

You can increase the memory yourself, this is anyway required in modern OS as FB would be too unstable without that.

FB hasn't been updated for years and will never be, that's the simple answer. Adobe will eventually stop offering it as a downloadable probably when they drop AIR.

As for the AIR framework it is coasting like it has been doing for the past few years until the plug is pulled by Adobe. When will that be depends on how active is the community and the willingness of Adobe. Do not forget, there are NO budget and plans to support Windows 10 packaging and it's fair to say there will never be any budget and plans to support any new platform coming along. AIR is coasting until it becomes irrelevant. Adobe will apply to AIR the same policy it did to Flash, letting it go until it can't go anymore.

I recommend for everyone to start looking at ways to convert their existing code base to something else. I did and now I still use Flash and AIR but I export my code base to other technology as well.

Report · Jul 27, 2017

I just hope (and expect) Adobe to ultimately open source AIR.

I can only imagine the class action law suits that would take place if AIR was dropped, when millions of dollars are dependent on it.

And so I think the long term goal for Adobe will be to open source the technology so it can continue and flourish by the community.

Report · Jul 27, 2017

Good advice from ASWC

You've obvisously missed the bold print:

LIMITATION OF LIABILITY. IN NO EVENT WILL ADOBE OR ITS SUPPLIERS BE LIABLE TO ANY PARTY FOR ANY DAMAGES, CLAIMS OR COSTS WHATSOEVER OR ANY CONSEQUENTIAL, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL DAMAGES, OR ANY LOST PROFITS OR LOST SAVINGS, EVEN IF AN ADOBE REPRESENTATIVE HAS BEEN ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH LOSS, DAMAGES, CLAIMS OR COSTS, OR FOR ANY CLAIM BY ANY THIRD PARTY. THE FOREGOING LIMITATIONS AND EXCLUSIONS APPLY TO THE EXTENT PERMITTED BY APPLICABLE LAW. ADOBE'S AGGREGATE LIABILITY AND THAT OF ITS SUPPLIERS UNDER OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE SHALL BE LIMITED TO NO MORE THAN US$50.

Enjoy your $50.00

Report · Jul 27, 2017

Open Sourcing would be awesome even for Flash, this could make those technologies relevant again.

Report · Jul 26, 2017

Ok, we can live without flash. But what about realtime video streaming (please don't advise HLS, Dash etc. it isn't "realtime").

Any plans to support RTMP in HTML5/JS?

Report · Jul 26, 2017

Chris and all. I really truly hope that this change will allow more resources/focus on AIR for desktop and mobile. I still believe AIR is the BEST way to produce apps, games, and utilities across operating systems. Thank you for sharing this information.

Report · Jul 27, 2017

I absolutely agree with Joseph.

Report · Jul 26, 2017

Great news

Support for 64-bit AIR – Windows Captive Only
- Does this also boost the max runtime memory for 2G upwards?
DirectX11 support for AIR desktop
- does this make playback for 4k video's possible?
Improved monitor and resolution settings for AIR Desktop
- Does this come with support for the % scaling on the resolution ?

Ans last but not least, any news on multitouch behaviour in windows 10?

any news on this?

multitouch is very slow and touchpoint stack up in windows 10, so [please address this issue also

thanx

Report · Jul 26, 2017

We have tested the actual AIR 64Bit Beta (Desktop) with up to nearly 6Gigs without any issues. The overall performance seems to be smoother too.

Playback of 4k Videos: im very interested on this too - at the moment Stage3d VideoTexture for example seems only to work up to hd resolution.

[added] h265 Video Decoding would be also very interesting from my point of view 🙂

Report · Jul 26, 2017

is the 64 bit beta available for download?

Do not see it on labs?

Report · Jul 26, 2017

Download Adobe AIR 26 Beta - Adobe Labs

-> 64 bit AIR 26 SDK & Compiler Beta – Captive apps only (Windows)

here you go....

Report · Jul 26, 2017

In recent years I have seen the situation where Adobe Air is not selected as a development application for smartphones in Japan in the near position. In 3d it is outstripped to Unity, in 2D animation SPINE and live2d are overwhelmed with mesh processing function, there is no way to ask Ane's functional extension still to ask a separate vendor or some rare engineer, the fundamental native game Walls such as development have not been solved. If Adobe wanted to revive Air as an application development platform and regain its former glory, we should understand how we are unable to provide the features that the market requires with Air. I have been developing applications with Air for many years and have been exploring the possibilities but are coming to the limit. We urgently recommend learning from the SPINE and live 2d the image modifying function on the timeline by the mesh and installing the ane's open market to simplify cooperation with native. Too much, Adobe is negligently neglecting the development of Air. In this way AnimeteCC will share the same fate as the flash player. And at that time, Adobe really needs to apologize for buying macromedia. I never want such a future, and you also want to be such a thing.

Report · Jul 26, 2017

stefanvdheijden : I've memory tested the 64Bit windows captive on a 24G machine and it took all the memory and starting paging without crashing. The test created bitmap images, attached multiple event listeners to them, scaling and adding to display list. Thousands of 4K images! I end tasked the application @ about 36G's

Report · Jul 26, 2017

環鳥91310758 Good points! I think something like the Unity asset store for ANEs would be really nice, and in general some community hub with consolidated forums and tutorials. There is a lot Adobe could learn from how Unity organizes the community and also monetizes the platform, which would boost reinvestments.