Thoughts on AIR Builder, it's all about the new blood now!

[周戈]

Hi Adobe,

As an old blood ActionScript developer, I don't want to see AIR and ActionScript dying together with the EOL of Flash Player, although Adobe said they will remain committed to AIR, but from the current tendency AIR probably won't survive for long. Don't get me wrong, I think AIR is a great cross platform native app solution, the problem is only old blood developers are still using AIR, and the numbers of those developers are decreasing.

The way I see it, the only way to truly save AIR and ActionScript is to attract new blood developers, and I think the best way to do that is through AIR Builder, here is my proposal:

1. AIR Builder will be based on the latest version of Eclipse, the AIR SDK will be included in AIR Builder, and it can be automatically updated through AIR Builder.

2. When a developer has opened AIR Builder, the welcome screen is like this:

Title: What do you want to do?

Selections:

A. I want to develop games.

If selected, AIR Builder will start downloading and setup the the latest Gaming SDK (Starling, Feathers, Away3D, DragonBones), then create a project that link the Gaming SDK, and show a webpage containing video tutorials for new blood developers to get started.

B. I want to develop apps.

If selected, AIR Builder will start downloading and setup the the latest Flex SDK, then create a Flex project, and show a webpage containing video tutorials for new blood developers to get started.

C. I want to develop Native Extensions.

• C1 Native Extensions for iOS and macOS (Swift): in this case, macOS and Xcode are needed.
• C2 Native Extensions for Android (Java): AIR Builder can download and setup the plugin of Android SDK for Eclipse.
• C3 Native Extensions for Windows (C#): in this case, Windows and Visual Studio are needed.

AIR Builder will provide some user interfaces to simplify the ANE packaging process, this has been a long time coming. Some video tutorials about making ANEs will be needed as well. AIR Builder can also show a webpage of ANE market, so that developers can buy ANEs from the market, or they can upload their ANEs for sale to the market.

3. AIR Builder can help developers to package their AIR made products for Windows Store, Mac App Store, Steam Store, XBox Store, App Store and Google Play (yeah, forget about the Web, the 6 stores are the real money making places). AIR Builder must provide some user interfaces to simplify the signing and packaging process.

4. About SWF exporting to H5 or WebAssembly, I don't think this is the top priority for AIR, the reasons are:

• 4.1 It would be tons of work and probably take years to build a satisfying cross compiler, by the compiler is finished, old blood developers would be long gone (left AIR for other solutions).
• 4.2 The most important thing right now is to attract new blood developers through AIR Builder, concentrating on cross platform native app development, concentrating on publishing AIR made apps to those 6 stores, this is a more rational move.

5. Some thoughts on advertising AIR Builder:

• 5.1 On the AIR Builder product website, don't say a word about "Flash", let the new comers think it is something completely new and has nothing to do with Flash.
• 5.2 On the AIR Builder product website, put some cool showcase videos in the front page, those videos should be showcasing AIR made products running on Windows, macOS, Steam, XBox, iOS and Android platforms, that's what new comers want to see, don't put technical descriptions on the frontpage, new comers wouldn't care, they only care what AIR can do, they need to see it in videos.
• 5.3 Put a nice poster of AIR Builder on the Adobe.com front page, at least for a week or two. On the Creative Cloud, give AIR Builder a nice spot.
• 5.4 On YouTube, post some official videos from Adobe about AIR Builder, at the same time, encourage developers to make videos about AIR Builder, if one of their videos gets 10,000 hits, they can have a 10% discount of purchasing AIR Builder, 20% discount if it gets 20,000 hits, and so on.
• 5.5 On blogs, same strategy like 5.4.

6. If all the things above were done, with the incoming of the new blood developers, we will have a vital and thriving community again, then years later we can re-think about ActionScript Next (like AS5 based on ES10+), AVM3, cross compiler for H5 or WebAssembly.

Okay, I've said what I have to say, this is my last cry for AIR to thrive, please consider my proposal.

chris.campbell Colin Holgate

ActionScript and AIR are legendary technologies, don't let the lengends die without a fight, they deserve a last fight!​

Ge Zhou

2017-07-31

[Colin Holgate]

Chris is the one that works for Adobe, and I'm sure he will show other people your suggestions.

I'm not a fan of complex IDEs, which I would count Eclipse as one of. Adobe Animate is an amazing tool for combining graphics, sounds, and code. I may be in a minority of people who are happy to work that way! A lot of animators never need to code, and a lot of developers do like to work in dedicated code development tools. But, given that Adobe closed down Flash Builder I'm not sure they will jump at the idea of AIR Builder.

I'm on the Animate prerelease, and some of these things are discussed there. Chris has already mentioned some up coming features for AIR, but even SWF is still due to be improved, beyond the end of 2020.

A lot of the recent improvements in Animate have been for the benefit of animators, but I live in hope that some features will be added for coders too.

[nickie1990]

good idea!

[mingtianjian]

good idea!

[tidusf39939682]

AIR目前最大的两个短板：

1是ANE：如果能出IDE，最好将打包ANE功能集成进去，可以将ANE分为编译型和脚本型。编译型和以前一样，主要是性能高。脚本型可以类似动态代码的方式，甚至直接用as3就能调用原生代码，目的是省事儿！

2是3D：这个嘛，已经没有任何可以用的3d引擎了，away3d和flare3d都死了，只能看adobe愿不愿意自己弄一个。否则就只能期待starling作者加入一点3d功能了。

至于html5，中国国内直接swf转html5的，直接用as3开发html5的都很多，adobe愿意做最好，不愿意做也无所谓。

个人观点，懒得翻译了。

[Colin Holgate]

"个人观点，懒得翻译了。"

We noticed! Thanks for adding your comments.

[ASWC]

No company will ever create that type of software for just one reason: Lack of Adobe commitment to the platform.

If Adobe was committed to Flash or AIR a company like Jet Brains would have an IDE for it by now as they have for every single technology where community/authors are committed.

[zasflower2014]

To tell you the truth, I think AIR is more promising than FlashPlayer. But my point is that 3D and gaming AIR are hopeless. Because unity and cocos2d do better. Instead, AIR has a huge advantage over cross platform application development. Because traditional application development requires IOS and Android to do two sets. Theoretically, ANE is rich enough, and AIR application development is feasible.

K Music Player HiEnd level Ultimate on the App Store

This is my AIR APP work. use AIR,flash also can develop top level APPs.

[georgefrankperry]

Making games in Unity is not necessarily better than AIR... merely consider the hurdles you need to go through to build an iOS game developed on Windows w/Unity vs w/AIR.

[ASWC]

Unity is suffering more and more, the same business model that made their success is now hurting them. There are more and more attractive cross platform solutions out there that are free and the price and the proprietary and non portable Unity development system is less and less attractive for those reasons.

[Colin Holgate]

They do have subscription now, which, as with Adobe, means they can do releases whenever they want, and not have to built up to a release that has enough new features to justify paying for an upgrade. They have had four updates since July, and are well into beta on the next dot release.

[yangt61013300]

JVM  can develop tobe Android!!!

why  AIR cannot??

Do Adobe reflect on it??

[PippoApps]

This would be awesome. I'd be happy even with a little less