Open-Source JavaScript Flash Player (HTML5/SVG)

gbutler69 writes "Someone has gone and done it. Tobias Schneider has created a Flash player written in JavaScript targeting SVG/HTML5-capable browsers. It's not a complete implementation yet, but it shows real promise. A few demos have been posted online. How long before HTML5/SVG next-generation browsers like Chrome, Firefox, Opera, Safari, Epiphany, and other Web-Kit based browsers completely supplant Flash and Silverlight/Moonlight?"

Re:This is great!

[datapharmer]

Clearly you aren't on a mac. I can tell a website is running flash with my eyes closed on my mac because the fans turn on. Other than rendering large amounts of video, flash is the ONLY thing that causes my fans to come on with any sort of regularity. This is not a browser specific issue, it is a adobe wrote and anwful flash implementation for mac. I am all for a javascript replacement for flash if it gets rid of the adobe crapware. Adobe flash for mac might actually be worse than real media player was on pc in the 90s.

Re:This is great!

[the roAm]

That's mostly true, but I'm somehow doubting JavaScript, as implemented in most rendering engines, will be able to do any of the higher-level Flash stuff with any semblance of grace or speed.

Re:Not SVG

[Jeffrey Baker]

Why shouldn't you use XHTML? By the way, SVG made its way into HTML5 and it's much more useful than canvas so I think the reports of SVG's death are greatly exaggerated.

Re:This is great!

[Jurily]

Couldn't we just ditch Flash and use something less retarded?

Re:This is great!

[Nadaka]

and java isn't slow. It currently runs about 2-3 times slower than c++ for nearly all applications, 2-3 times faster than .net CLR and about 10-20 times faster than scripting languages. In some case, though admittedly rare, java exceeds the performance of c++.

Get real

[Anonymous Coward]

Er, um, do you recall the last time someone announced a ______ player written in some interpreted language?

It's always a thin shell of interpreted glop around some real codec.

You see JavaScript is about 10,000 times too slow to do the nitty-gritty video decoding.
So they always use a real existing codec to do the heavy lifting.

Since most of the security issues are in the codec parts, this is rarely a big improvement.

Re:This is great!

[slim]

I thought it was useful. I had assumed it was Canvas.

Re:This is great!

[JesseMcDonald]

For long-running, non-interactive applications, sure. As you say, in terms of raw performance Java is only 2-3 times slower than C++, which still makes it faster than CLR or most scripting languages. However, in the areas of start-up time and GUI performance Java's reputation for poor performance is well-deserved. This may not impact its usefulness for servers, but it makes all the difference in the world when it comes to desktop applications.

Re:OMGWTFPDF

[Anonymous Coward]

Even better, maybe someone could write a Flash PDF viewer, and then we could view our PDFs using this flash interpreter.

(Ohboy. The layers of cruft involved in that concept have just given me a cold shiver up my spine)

Re:OMGWTFPDF

[ReinoutS]

The real WTF is that you are trying to view a PDF in your browser in the first place. Try opening it with a real pdf viewer [gnome.org] instead.

Re:This is great!

[ByOhTek]

Don't feel particularly special. Adobe flash is horrid on ANY platform it is made for. Not just Mac.

How long? How about 'probably never'

[Quarters]

Ah yes, another stab at (this is a killer!). Those predictions never pan out. Specifically for this: * All existing websites would need to be retrofitted to host .swf (.flv?) movies differently * All popular browsers would need to embrace HTML5 video playback * Microsoft would have to emphasize this over their own product. * Adobe would have to emphasize this over their own product. * The marketing department being utilized for this tech (at this time that would be 'no one') would have to be better funded and more highly motivated than both the Microsoft and Adobe marketing departments * The vast majority of web users would have to care. So, yeah, no.

Re:This is great!

[Ltap]

The answer to your question relies on a proper definition of "we". "We", to you, means everyone who uses the Internet. However, "we", in reality, are a small minority of people who know what they are doing and what they are talking about.

It is similar to ipv6 - change can only happen at the level of big companies (or, in this case, video hosting sites like Youtube) who don't want to change for various reasons. HTML5 took forever to get here because it was designed to be easy to transfer to, but people have still ignored it the same way they have ignored web standards since their first conception. The only way to make people change is to make the HTML5 implementation easier than Flash implementation, which is difficult since so many people learn and are comfortable with Flash. Once HTML5 begins to have a little more impact and people (hopefully) learn it, we can all just move on, since nothing, as well all know, is easier than HTML.

Re:This is great!

[IGnatius T Foobar]

Couldn't we just ditch Flash and use something less retarded?

Bite your tongue. If anything replaces Flash it will be Silverlight. Do you really want Microsoft controlling the non-HTML portion of the Web? Do you really want Microsoft turning the Web into a Windows-only experience? Because that's what's going to happen if Flash is supplanted. Be careful wht you wish for.

Re:Ummm ...

[Transfinite]

Umm because IE is shit, lagging about 3 years behind the rest. They STILL have not managed to produce a *fully* standards compliant browser.

Now seriously...

[LunarEffect]

I'm impressed! Flash has pretty much become an integral part of the web, yet you always had to download and install an extra plugin to be able to view flash content. Having an implementation of the flashplayer written in a language that can be executed by every major browser reguardless of the operating system is an incredibly useful thing to have.
And now with ever faster Processors and better implementations of JavaScript interpreters, I think its far from a bad thing to put more work into the hands of interpreted languages.

Re:This is great!

[dave420]

When that's possible, sure! Until then everyone will keep using Flash, as it's released, wide-spread, fast, and works.

Re:Not SVG

[Anonymous Coward]

Why shouldn't you use XHTML?

1) There's no practical advantage to using XHTML over HTML.

That sounds very much like the usual bullshit coming from "web-developers" who doesn't know the content/functionality of XHTML. If you think XHTML is HTML4 plus some extra slashes here and there and a different MIME-type, then go learn XHTML before you bitch about it.
A hint: The real difference between HTML4 and XHTML lies in the parts that Internet Explorer doesn't support.

2) There's no XHTML2. The future is HTML5.

HTML5 is almost as much XHTML as XHTML2 is XHTML. The difference in this area between the two is that HTML5 is both XHTML and (SGML-)HTML.

JavaScript audio?

[tepples]

ECMAScript and open graphics standards?

What about open sound standards? Can the <audio> element of the HTML DOM support playing multiple instances of one sound at once, or varying the playback rate or volume of audio, or synchronizing vector animation to the audio? The common uses of audio that I've seen in SWF objects on Newgrounds makes use of all of these Flash Player features.

Re:This is great!

[h4rr4r]

How about just posting the damn videos? All modern browsers will play video fine.

Re:This is great!

[amicusNYCL]

Some video and a set of radio buttons, huh? Educate thyself. [tracorp.com]

Whats needed to kill flash, let me tell you ...

[BitZtream]

An editor that compares to the Flash Authoring tools.

Thats it.

There isn't anything special in Flash that can't be done with Batik or Opera's latest SVG implementations except sound and video, which you can handle in HTML5.

The only thing thats needed is a good authoring toolset so that graphics gimps can produce their warez without having to use notepad.

Re:This is great!

[Acaeris]

erm, I hate to ask but what other browser are you referring to?

Safari's window code may be proprietary but it uses Webkit as it's rendering engine, which to my knowledge is not only open source but the most standard compliant at the moment. http://webkit.org/ [webkit.org]

Chrome also uses Webkit and Chromium is the open source version of it. http://code.google.com/chromium/ [google.com]

Gecko is the open source renderer for Firefox and most of the other browsers that appear on a website's stats.

Opera is the only proprietary browser other than IE and it's pushing standards just as much as Gecko and Webkit.

am I missing something?