OpenFl + Haxe was a let down

[MintPaw]

OpenFL is a multitarget platform. It's a popular alternative for AS3 and I've been urged to switch to it for multiple people.

A large portion of Flash uses import swf or swc file for their art assets. OpenFL allows you to do that but ONLY FOR SWF TARGET. Should that be noted somewhere in bold text? And it's not like when I compile it says "Sorry, you can't use the swf library for Windows or Android target" it gives me some random bs error I have to scour my project to understand.

"Could find function free_abstract" is the error message.
Could? Where you not suppose to find it?

When I removed all the swfs and Assets.getMovieClip() it works fine.

That's a fatal flaw in the formula and I really feel like I was baited into into a multiplatform framework that I was suppose to be able to easily migrate to and when I actually got it it's missing one of the most key features of AS3.

And at first I didn't notice it, I used graphics.drawRect() and such to test if I had it all set up correctly. It seemed to work so I was like great, this is awesome. But then I make half the game using the Flash target to test because Android compiles are long. Then I got to test it on my device and nothing, compiles fine, instantly crashes on device.

I ended up swapping all the swf assets for bitmaps but it was a long process and I needed it done in time for school.

I guess this is just the warning I wish I had when trying out OpenFL.

[GeoKureli]

Thanks for the heads up, but yeah, swfs are a hassle anyways. bitmaps are the way to go. also I'm surprised no one has made a JSon exporter for an fla library.

[MSGhero]

The github readme says c++ and swf, so I think you just had a bad install of lime. Either way, flash pro + texturepacker + flixel makes it way too easy.

[Sandremss128]

I got swf art working with haxe + (nme at the time) on android and native C++ well over 2 years ago.
Now haxe and openfl have matured a lot over the past years, but you still have to be a 'pioneer' of some sort to really dive into it and get stuff working.
It's not all super stable, documentation sucks and the origin of some bugs are hard to trace especially on some targets; that's what you sign up for.

Especially the swf library is surrounded with some controversy because it started out as an open source thing that the whole community could use. The dude making it really started to add complex features to it and put effort in to make it stable; but he has to eat as well so they made it a premium feature.
Now they offer a free version for a limited time which you have to register for but it's also on github. To be honest I haven't used it since it went to the marketplace, but it worked before that.

The point to take home is that you shouldn't warn people about shit not working with openfl / haxe; you should warn them that it's a hassle to get it to work and sometimes you might not have the spirit to make it work.

[MintPaw]

I believe and it make sense that it should compile under native c++ just like in Flash Player if you simply click File < Create Projector. It should bundle the Flash Player runtime the same way. Maybe it is just in a bad period that I decided to pick it up.

But it still doesn't and won't work on any mobile platforms, I guess I should've just realized that it's a too good to be true kind of situation.

It actually does run pretty well on mobile if you don't use swfs, I'm not mad about it, I just feel like I was mislead by the droves of programmers telling me to switch to it to port my game and make new games with my same workflow for mobile.

I just think it's an oversold idea.

[MintPaw]

Well if it was able to parse out the assets for C++ why wouldn't it be able to do the same for Android since we're using the NDK to port the C++?

[MSGhero]

At 5/1/14 02:44 PM, MintPaw wrote: Well if it was able to parse out the assets for C++ why wouldn't it be able to do the same for Android since we're using the NDK to port the C++?

This is more of a question for the openfl forums, but after a cursory search, people have gotten swf to work in html5 and all cpp except neko (as of like 5 weeks ago). I honestly think you just need to reinstall lime.

[Sandremss128]

At 5/1/14 02:44 PM, MintPaw wrote: Well if it was able to parse out the assets for C++ why wouldn't it be able to do the same for Android since we're using the NDK to port the C++?

At 5/1/14 08:54 AM, Sandremss128 wrote: I got swf art working with haxe + (nme at the time) on android and native C++ well over 2 years ago.

"on android". Sometimes I believe people don't read my posts at all.

[MintPaw]

At 5/1/14 05:15 PM, Sandremss128 wrote: "on android". Sometimes I believe people don't read my posts at all.

Yeah sorry, missed it.

At 5/1/14 03:01 PM, MSGhero wrote: I honestly think you just need to reinstall lime.

I've done a fresh install on multiple computer never used for programming, the current version doesn't work.

I guess I could play with rolling it back, but I've already had to roll back the SWF library to get it to even compile for flash. It seems like there's a certain setting for each version that would make it work. And I didn't realize it was such a hacky system (I can only imagine how it was years ago) but the packages should only be released when they're stable, opting in to beta packages should exist. On the most current up to date settings it just falls to pieces. Generally you roll back when you having problems with a very specific feature that are broken, not when half the exports straight up don't work.

Using "haxelib list" I can see that the only library below 1.0 is Lime and I thought that was more of a courtesy then to represent that it was in extreme beta.

Again, I'm not saying it's terrible, and it seems that at one point or another it's all worked. It's just a really fragile system and I wouldn't really recommend it more than the most bleeding edge of programmers.

[Sandremss128]

At 5/2/14 02:43 AM, MintPaw wrote: And I didn't realize it was such a hacky system (I can only imagine how it was years ago)

To be honest a couple of years ago there was just nme. You installed it; the swf library was default and free and it just worked with a few minor adjustments. From what I hear from your story it's actually gotten more complicated to get it working.

Now they changed the whole thing to 'openfl' and introduced another thing called 'Lime', changed the API around to look more like the flash API.
Left and right things get changed and code that used to work some time ago suddenly gives errors.

The swf library went from free and open source to not-free out of the blue and was removed from the package and github, now it's 'free' again for a limited time.

It's a great system on paper, but for any serious project that you might dedicate a lot of your time and money to I would wait for things to settle down.

[slugrail]

At 5/2/14 09:30 AM, Sandremss128 wrote:

Its a great system on paper, but for any serious project that you might dedicate a lot of your time and money to I would wait for things to settle down.

Do they still charge for iOS deployment?

[MintPaw]

At 5/3/14 03:41 AM, PSvils wrote:

At 5/2/14 10:14 PM, slugrail wrote: Do they still charge for iOS deployment?

OpenFL has no fees for any target.

Well there's gonna be fees for iOS deployment, there's no fee for targeting the platform or compiling to it. But there will be fees from Apple to deploy.