[IAEP] Flash at Sugar Labs

[Wade Brainerd]

On Mon, Jan 5, 2009 at 7:15 AM, Bert Freudenberg <bert at freudenbergs.de> wrote:
> On 05.01.2009, at 05:24, John Watlington wrote:
>
>> On Jan 4, 2009, at 9:23 PM, Wade Brainerd wrote:
>>>
>>> Currently Sugar is incapable of running software which is not
>>> specifically designed for it.
>>
>> Sugar runs simpler SWF applications just fine, through the Browser.
>> They don't have to be "designed" for Sugar.
>
>
> I think this goes besides the original point of Bryan. He is well aware that
> software needs to be specifically designed for Sugar, and wether this is
> good or bad is not the current debate. The point is what tools one can use
> to implement a proper Sugar activity. Bryan says the tools many content
> developers are familiar with are HTML, Javascript, and Flash.

I agree completely - I proposed a swf-activity launcher script as the
solution, in my initial response to Bryan.

> I think it would be relatively easy to come up with an activity template
> that just has a subdirectory for SWF content. Creating an SWF activity then
> would involve copying the template, editing the meta data, putting the SWF
> content into the directory, zipping it up and voila, a nice XO bundle. That
> process could easily be done by a script, even on Windows.

I think the template should be built into and supported by the Sugar
dev team, rather than something that has to be copied around.

That way it's able to be updated and improved over time, and as better
Flash solutions become available we can incorporate them easily.

I agree with the rest of Bert's plan.  It should be a PyGTK activity
with just an activity toolbar, which launches Gnash or Adobe Flash
into its canvas.  It should also find the Flash persistence database
and copy it to/from the Journal.

A nice additional feature would be to make use of Jordan's screen
resolution dropper on the XO to allow Flash activities to run at
600x450, which would likely quadruple performance.

-Wade