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

[el111]

Speaking of new featues...

AIR 27 Beta Rev 1 is out

http://labs.adobe.com/downloads/air.html

http://fpdownload.macromedia.com/pub/labs/flashruntimes/shared/air27_flashplayer27_releasenotes.pdf

- Async Texture for Win

- DirectX 11 support for Win

- Adt correctly signs any dynamic frameworks packaged

- Support for new languages

Finnish (fi),

Greek (el),

Indonesian (in),

Malay (ms),

Thai (th)

Vietnamese (vi)

[dews]

el111  wrote

Speaking of new featues...

AIR 27 Beta Rev 1 is out

http://labs.adobe.com/downloads/air.html

http://fpdownload.macromedia.com/pub/labs/flashruntimes/shared/air27_flashplayer27_release notes.pdf

- Async Texture for Win

- DirectX 11 support for Win

- Adt correctly signs any dynamic frameworks packaged

- Support for new languages

Finnish (fi),

Greek (el),

Indonesian (in),

Malay (ms),

Thai (th)

Vietnamese (vi)

Boom!!!  Talk about Adobe's commitment to AIR!  Release after release after release, if this isn't proof of Adobe's commitment to AIR I don't know what is.  And to quote el111 again:

el111  wrote

Here are the stats from AppBrain for Android App Frameworks as of July 2017

Adobe AIR - Android library statistics - AppBrain

Android app frameworks - AppBrain

Includes Slither.io which has 100million+ downloads - Amongst the highest Rank in different categories

Re: using air.com as an identifier. It naturally doesn't include those apps which omit this - so the actual figures are higher.

With a little marketing our community will continue to grow.  Onward chaps!

[rewb0rn]

Please take note that Unity and Air are (for unknown reasons) listed in different categories on AppBrain and Unity has much higher figures than Air.

Unity: Unity 3D - Android library statistics - AppBrain

Air: Adobe AIR - Android library statistics - AppBrain

I love Air, but somehow these rumours that Air is the most popular framework or that 10% of all Android apps are built with Air just don't seem to be true.

[ASWC]

I agree, if it's so popular where are the very active and popular forums you can see for other technologies? Where are the cool AIR IDEs that companies create to get their share of the popularity of the technology? Where's our AIR Studio from jet brains? I love AIR but people have to face the facts and stop making up stuff. 10% Android seems suspiciously high but 10% on Ios seems really impossible.

[ASWC]

This is a quick demo of conversion since a few people asked me about this process. There's a view (TestView) that gets converted from AS3 to typescript, the typescript project is then compiled and immediately shows up in browser with exact same look and functionality.

[Colin Holgate]

Perhaps you should work for Adobe, and make what you have done be just a simple publish checkbox inside Animate?

[ASWC]

lol, I bet Adobe engineers can do the same in their sleep in about 1 hour and 100 times better.

[zwetan_uk]

ASWC  wrote

This is a quick demo of conversion since a few people asked me about this process. There's a view (TestView) that gets converted from AS3 to typescript, the typescript project is then compiled and immediately shows up in browser with exact same look and functionality.

I saw nobody asking about that in this forum thread, but now I do understand why you are so keen to promote
"converting existing AS3 code base to another technology"

You're not here to talk about the Adobe AIR roadmap but to promote your tool.

[ASWC]

That's just insane, that tool is not available anywhere and there's no public version of it anyway, a few people have send me private messages about it and I promised a quick demo of the tool which I delivered. I've contributed to Flash and AIR platform for years for free and never tried to sell anything to anyone and I'm not gonna start now. Stop your unwarranted attacks.

[Colin Holgate]

Unity have said they are used for 50% of submitted games, which I am sure they are. It's very hard to tell what percentage of apps are considered games, but the around 8% figure from AppBrain seems a bit low. The 10% figure I saw in one presentation by Adobe (which I can't track down), and heard re-quoted in another presentations. Which doesn't matter a lot to me personally. As a Mac user, and everyone I know uses a Mac, the 3 or so percentage for all machines everywhere could well worry me. But I'm not too worried, a lot of people in my industry are using Macs.

About Jet Brains, they make IntelliJ IDEA. That supports ActionScript:

Ultimate vs. Community - Compare Editions | IntelliJ IDEA

AIR is just a name for one form of how ActionScript is delivered. A lot of people think that AIR is the starting point, and that iOS, Android, Flash Player, are all exports from AIR. They're not, AIR is a name to avoid having to say "Flash". Jet Brains support for ActionScript is good enough, and they don't have the marketing pressure to have to say "AIR" just to make sure nobody thinks about Flash.

[Born2code]

I don't see any reason why Adobe can't be a MAJOR competitor to Unity.

If Adobe developed an awesome Game Studio that exports to native exe, dmg, apk, ipa all powered by AIR and coupled with Adobe marketing behind it, it can be a serious revenue make for Adobe.

AIR is the best cross os development env, just needs a great Gaming Dev Studio and AIR will kick A$$.

[ASWC]

Agreed, One good dedicated IDE, a better budget, publishing for new platforms (Windows store), great PR, and AIR could be number one CD in a year and for the next 10 years easy, Adobe don't believe it so won't do it.

[Colin Holgate]

Unity can make insanely good triple-A games. AIR could complete with a small part of what Unity is used for. On the other hand, Adobe can make Animate useful to Unity users:

Publish content on multiple platforms |

I don't mind if some of the money that Adobe gets, that helps AIR to be continued, is coming from users of other tools.

[zwetan_uk]

Making games is good, but personally I like AIR because it allows me to build other kind of apps too.

In fact, doing only games like Unity is quite limiting.

[georgefrankperry]

We have been working on a project management tool (for lack of a better description) and API that could be a game changer for AIR and Animate CC. Hoping to get a beta out later this year on in early 2018, I am extremely excited about this project. Think of what Starling did for AIR, but on the tooling side. It supports AIR, HTML5 and OpenFL projects as well (with an API for each), they are all integrated with Animate CC and it takes development to the next level. I'm talking like 20-40% reduction in hours on our projects.

Anybody interested in discussing the project or joining our pre-alpha can email me at gperry@ten90studios.com

[ASWC]

Nobody is arguing the merits of AIR, I'm arguing the commitment of Adobe and essentially stating Adobe is committed to AIR like it has been committed to Flash with the result we now know.

[georgefrankperry]

Flash Player isn't being supported because the usage of the plugin has fallen dramatically over the years. Flash Player isn't AIR... duh. Why would you see a similar drop in usage in AIR? You wouldn't... because users don't care about AIR, in a good way. Adobe keeps supporting AIR for few more years and the association with Flash slowly dies. Nobody is uninstalling apps on their phone because they were made with AIR. Continuing to support Flash Player would just be a mistake and I'm glad Adobe is looking forward. Now, I just hope that means AIR can get a little bit more love and commitment.

[ASWC]

Sure, ridiculous, blindfolded ... but at the same time developers are leaving that platform and the community is shrinking year after year ...

FYI, beside TvOS/AndroidTV, those are NOT new supported platforms, new supported platform would be Windows 10 Store publishing for example, won't happen.

Tell me, why is Jet brains creating specific IDEs for all major technology out there EXCEPT Flash/AIR?

[zwetan_uk]

ASWC  wrote

Sure, ridiculous, blindfolded ... but at the same time developers are leaving that platform and the community is shrinking year after year ...

FYI, beside TvOS/AndroidTV, those are NOT new supported platforms, new supported platform would be Windows 10 Store publishing for example, won't happen.

Tell me, why is Jet brains creating specific IDEs for all major technology out there EXCEPT Flash/AIR?

About "new supported platform would be Windows 10 Store publishing for example, won't happen"

You can use Desktop Bridge to convert a WIN32 desktop app installer to a Universal Windows Platform (UWP) installer
and so distribute your Adobe AIR app through the Windows 10 Store.

I can assure you it is already happening.

[ASWC]

I've done it believe me and it is not an easy process, publishing your AIR for Ios or android could be done by a baby in comparison. We need real AIR support for that.

[ASWC]

Nothing pessimistic about my view, if anything it's historically based on what Adobe has done. Adobe never bought Macromedia for its Flash technology, it inherited it and had to deal with it and it did just that until they decided to pull the plug on AS NEXT, then I was also called pessimistic when I said like many that Flash will not survive Adobe lack of commitment and it turns out I was right.

Adobe inherited most of the Apollo team as well and dedicated huge resources to it for years, then they reduced the dev team by 95% and announced they will never support Windows Store publishing (and reading between the lines any other new platform coming out).

Yeah sure I could be wrong this time even though I've been right every single time before about Adobe decisions and their consequences but then let me ask you this:

How bright is the future of a cross platform technology that makes it clear it will never support any new platform coming out?

All I'm saying really is as a company or as an individual, don't keep all your eggs in the same basket and start prepare for a future where Adobe pulls the plug on AIR.

[ASWC]

I would still like to see the figures (please post a link) of AIR being the source of 10% itune app store submissions. You claimed it and that does seem very high to me but I really would like to check that out (can't find anything coming even remotely close to those figures on Google)

[dews]

AIR is of course amazing..  I know I'm speaking to the choir here but still it's a sigh of relief for us to know that AIR will continue to be supported in the truly amazing fashion that we've enjoyed over the past many months.

It's a shame about Flash but the writing has been on the wall for some time, so it's no surprise but I hope that the AIR team can begin working on, and support the existing efforts behind porting existing Starling or Flex Web APPs to HTML5/JS.

Support for wearables I'm super excited about.. I see that it's mentioned in the Community Features Survey​ so that's fantastic!

I'd also like to see Flash Builder rekindled, it's still the best IDE in my opinion but at least we have alternatives..  still would be great to see.

Go Adobe!!

[ljb2411]

I second the idea of updating Flash Builder.

[santanuk76005047]

I really love the idea of having more updates to Flash Builder and makes the eco-system more solid! But I also know this not going to happen, or sooner.