OpenFL

OpenFL
Developer(s)OpenFL Contributors
Initial release30 May 2013; 11 years ago (2013-05-30)[1]
Stable release
9.4.0[2] Edit this on Wikidata / 21 October 2024; 42 days ago (21 October 2024)
Repository
Written inHaxe
Operating systemMicrosoft Windows, macOS, Linux[3][1]
PlatformMicrosoft Windows, macOS, Linux, iOS, Android, Flash Player, HTML5[3][1]
TypeSoftware framework
LicenseMIT License[4]
Websitewww.openfl.org Edit this at Wikidata

OpenFL is a free and open-source software framework and platform for the creation of multi-platform applications and video games.[5][6] OpenFL applications can be written in Haxe, JavaScript (EcmaScript 5 or 6+), or TypeScript,[7] and may be published as standalone applications for several targets including iOS, Android, HTML5 (choice of Canvas, WebGL, SVG or DOM), Windows, macOS, Linux, WebAssembly, Flash, AIR, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 3, PlayStation Vita, Xbox One, Wii U, TiVo, Raspberry Pi, and Node.js.[8]

The most popular editors used for Haxe and OpenFL development[9] are:

OpenFL contains Haxe ports of major graphical libraries such as Away3D,[11][12][13] Starling,[14][15] Babylon.js,[16] Adobe Flash and DragonBones.[17][18] Due to the multi-platform nature of OpenFL, such libraries usually run on multiple platforms such as HTML5, Adobe AIR and Android/iOS.

More than 500 video games have been developed with OpenFL,[19] including the BAFTA-award-winning game Papers, Please, Rymdkapsel, Lightbot, Friday Night Funkin', and Madden NFL Mobile.

OpenFL was created by Joshua Granick and is actively administrated and maintained by software engineer, board member and co-owner, Chris Speciale.[20]

Technical details

OpenFL

OpenFL is designed to fully mirror the Flash API.[1][6] SWF files created with Adobe Flash Professional or other authoring tools may be used in OpenFL programs.[6]

OpenFL supports rendering in OpenGL, Cairo, Canvas, SVG and even HTML5 DOM. In the browser, WebGL is the default renderer but if unavailable then canvas (CPU rendering) is used.[21] Certain features (shape.graphics or bitmapData.draw) will use CPU rendering, but the display list remains GPU accelerated as far as possible.[21]

Lime

OpenFL uses the Lime library for low-level rendering. Lime provides hardware-accelerated rendering of vector graphics on all supported platforms.[22][21]

Lime is a library designed to provide a consistent "blank canvas" environment on all supported targets, including Flash Player, HTML5, Microsoft Windows, macOS, Linux, iOS, Android, consoles, set-top boxes and other systems.[21] Lime is a cross-platform graphics, sound, input and windowing library, which means OpenFL can focus on being a Flash API, and not handling all these specifics. Lime also includes command-line tools.[21]

Haxe

Haxe is a high-level cross-platform multi-paradigm programming language and compiler that can produce applications and source code, for many different computing platforms, from one code-base.[23][24][25][26] It is free and open-source software, distributed under the GNU General Public License (GPL) 2.0, and the standard library under the MIT License.

Haxe includes a set of common functions that are supported across all platforms, such as numeric data types, text, arrays, binary and some common file formats.[24][27] Haxe also includes platform-specific application programming interface (API) for Adobe Flash, C++, PHP and other languages.[24][28]

Haxe originated with the idea of supporting client-side and server-side programming in one language, and simplifying the communication logic between them.[29][30][31] Code written in the Haxe language can be source-to-source compiled into ActionScript 3, JavaScript, Java, C++, C#, PHP, Python, Lua[32] and Node.js.[24][27][33][34] Haxe can also directly compile SWF, HashLink and NekoVM bytecode.

Starling

The Haxe port of the Starling Framework runs on Stage3D and supports GPU-accelerated rendering of vector graphics.[21] It uses a custom Stage3D implementation, and does not require the OpenFL display list to work.[21][35]

References

  1. ^ a b c d "Introducing OpenFL". Joshua Granick Blog. 30 May 2013. Archived from the original on 2014-10-02.
  2. ^ "Release 9.4.0". 21 October 2024. Retrieved 23 October 2024.
  3. ^ a b "openfl.org". Archived from the original on 2014-10-26.
  4. ^ "LICENSE.md". Github. Archived from the original on 2017-03-30.
  5. ^ "README.md". Github. Archived from the original on 2015-08-13.
  6. ^ a b c Doucet, Lars (2014-03-18). "Flash is dead, long live OpenFL!". Gamasutra. Archived from the original on 2015-08-30.
  7. ^ "OpenFL ReadMe". Github. Archived from the original on 2018-04-27.
  8. ^ "OpenFL ReadMe". Github. Archived from the original on 2018-04-27.
  9. ^ "openfl/openfl". GitHub. Archived from the original on 27 April 2018. Retrieved 27 April 2018.
  10. ^ Haxe Support Archived 2015-07-06 at the Wayback Machine, FlashDevelop Wiki
  11. ^ "Home > Away3D". away3d.com. Archived from the original on 19 November 2010. Retrieved 27 April 2018.
  12. ^ Away Foundation roadmap 2014 Archived 2016-03-06 at the Wayback Machine, Away3D Foundation
  13. ^ away3d 1.2.0 Archived 2016-03-06 at the Wayback Machine, Ported to OpenFL 2.x/Haxe, Haxelib
  14. ^ Starling Framework Archived 2018-01-02 at the Wayback Machine, Gamua
  15. ^ openfl/starling Archived 2017-03-30 at the Wayback Machine, The "Cross-Platform Game Engine", a popular Stage3D framework
  16. ^ BabylonJS Archived 2018-01-01 at the Wayback Machine, 3D engine based on WebGL/Web Audio and JavaScript
  17. ^ DragonBones Archived 2017-12-30 at the Wayback Machine, Character Rigging Platform
  18. ^ openfl/dragonbones Archived 2018-04-27 at the Wayback Machine, Runtime support for DragonBones skeletal animation
  19. ^ "Showcase". www.openfl.org. Archived from the original on 26 December 2017. Retrieved 27 April 2018.
  20. ^ "Administrative Organization Changes". OpenFL Community. 2022-04-26. Retrieved 2022-11-17.
  21. ^ a b c d e f g Getting started with Haxe and Starling Archived 2017-12-27 at the Wayback Machine, OpenFL Community, Dec 2017
  22. ^ Benefits of using starling over openfl? Archived 2017-12-27 at the Wayback Machine, OpenFL Community
  23. ^ "Nicolas' announcement of spelling change on Haxe official mail list".
  24. ^ a b c d Ponticelli, Franco (2008-02-11). Professional haXe and Neko. Wiley. ISBN 978-0470122136.
  25. ^ Ivanov, Michael (2011-05-24). Away3D 3.6 Cookbook. Packt Publishing Ltd. ISBN 978-1849512817.
  26. ^ Doucet, Lars (2015-06-03). "Haxe/OpenFL for home game consoles". Gamasutra. Archived from the original on 2015-09-08.
  27. ^ a b Introduction to the Haxe Standard Library Archived 2015-08-14 at the Wayback Machine, Haxe Docs
  28. ^ Target Specific APIs, Introduction to the Haxe Standard Library Archived 2015-08-14 at the Wayback Machine, Haxe Docs
  29. ^ "Haxe Interview". Io Programmo. 2009-04-01: 1–6. Archived from the original on 2015-12-08. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  30. ^ Grden, John; Mineault, Patrick; Balkan, Aral; Hughes, Marc; Arnold, Wade (2008-07-16). The Essential Guide to Open Source Flash Development. Apress. p. Chapter 9 (Using Haxe). ISBN 978-1430209942.
  31. ^ Fisher, Matt (2013-01-01). HTML5 for Flash Developers. Packt Publishing Ltd. ISBN 978-1849693332.
  32. ^ "Hello Lua! - Haxe". Archived from the original on 2016-08-06. Retrieved 2016-07-09.
  33. ^ "hxnodejs (4.0.9)". Archived from the original on 2016-06-18. Retrieved 2016-07-09.
  34. ^ Haxe, iPhone & C++ At Last Archived 2012-04-15 at the Wayback Machine, GameHaxe website
  35. ^ Starling for OpenFL Archived 2017-03-30 at the Wayback Machine, "The "Cross-Platform Game Engine", Github

See also