Linux for Designers

Some days ago i found via the Inkscape Extension Repository an Flash SWF exporter. But it didn't work because it was outdated. So i dive into the code and with some help i get it working again. Here is an example of the Speed Dreams logo icon i made in Inkscape and the exported SWF:

This is a simple Flash SWF export via the PDF format. It requires SWFTools. It may failes with complex graphics or export them as images. For improved results try always the newest version of Inkscape and SWFTools:
* Download the archive inkscape_export_flash_swf_2011.zip.zip
* Install SWFTools (a PPA with up-to-date packages are here)
* As root copy the files of the archive to /usr/share/inkscape/extensions
* Launch Inkscape and create or open a drawing
* Launch Inkscape and create or open a drawing
* At "Save as" dialogue you will find "Flash SWF" at the file types dropdown menu
* If you like to have thumbnails of Flash *.swf files and like to view them without a browser
  then install the packages "swfdec" and "gnome-swfdec" too.

Dennis Ippel has created a script which export scenes of Blender as Flash ActionScript 3.0 objects for various Flash 3D engines like Papervision3D. That is a real cool addon to bring 3D into the web using Flash.
For details visit the official exporter webpage.

The SWFtools, basis of various other Flash tools and my SWF Exporter for GIMP, are now available in version 0.9. Besides improvement of existing tools the developers added a new tool calles AS3Compile. AS3Compile is a standalone ActionScript 3.0 compiler that is mostly compatible with Adobe Flex. This will open a new chapter of Flash development on Linux.

I updated my Flash SWF Export for GIMP. Now it can generate the XHTML page where the exported flash is embeded.

» Read more...

Yesterday i discovered a very interesting link that is may the beginning of something cool: Shockweaver. Shockweaver Alpha 0.1 is the beginning of a Linux IDE for Flash based on SWFtools. A Deb package for Ubuntu or Debian is available too.
The website is in portuguese only so it's hard to find how it work. At the moment only simple Actionscript functions are available. I have to explore it more. Hopefully some more developers would help to make it strong

Adobe published now the final Flash Player 10. This version brings a lot of improvements to the Linux platform. Now the Linux Flash Player has the same features as on any other platform. For more details check out the feature page.
Best of all Adobe provides now a Deb archive for Ubuntu 8.04 but they use their own file structure and it seems there is no 64bit build again

To enjoy Flash Player 10 without smashing your Ubuntu:
- extract the Deb archive (do not install it)
- extract the data.tar.gz
- copy as root the file "install_flash_player_10_linux/usr/lib/adobe-flashplugin/libflashplayer.so" to "/usr/lib/flashplugin-nonfree"

On the way completing my last customer project i searched for free or open source and customizeable Flash galleries, here are my results:
* Simple Viewer (free)
* Polaroid (open source)
* Cover Flow (open source)
* PageFlip (open source)
* MegaZine (open source)
* Flash Photo Gallery (free)

Adobe published the release candidare of the Flash Player 10. This version brings a lot of improvements to the Linux platform:
* optimized sound sound API and sound buffer
* windowless overlay mode now working (Firefox 3 required)
* new embedding modes (explained by the developer Tinic Uro)
* support for the Video4Linux 2
All details about Flash Player 10 can be found at the release notes. And of course the beta 2 is available for Linux too.
Download it and copy the binaries as root to "/usr/lib/flashplugin-nonfree". Shutdown your browswer and restart it, open the url "about:plugins" to make sure it's available.

OpenLaszlo a premier open-source platform for rich internet applications is released as version 4.1. This version brings new features like:
* full support for DHTML/Ajax
* Preliminary support for SWF9 is included
* Over 800 bug fixes
* Significantly improved documentation suite
More about this release can be found in the release announcement of the Open Laszlo Blog.

After 15 years of development and 5 release candidates Wine is published today as 1.0. In the release candidate phase so many bugs were fixed and Wine runs really smooth now my favorite Windows apps. If you ever had problems with older versions of Wine you should give it a try again
Read my post about the smoothest way getting you Windows app running too.