Announcing Plash - A flash model framework for Processing.

aalavandh..

Announcing Plash - A flash model framework for Processing.

in Library and Tool Development • 10 months ago

Dear Friends,

I had been working on this library to do my MRes assignment, but eventually it took its own way and importance. Having been a flash developer primarily, saw processing and got attracted to it. Of course my first (but not ex) girlfriend flash is not angry with it.

Since the assignment for my current module involves rendering effect data visualization with Processing, felt it would be great to have the features of flash to achieve the effect. I would say for every thing we need to accomplish graphically processing has a way more than one which sometimes could be a problem. For example setting the color where both individual color values or hexadecimal is accepted. True that you can set the mode of your choice but this is something very overwhelming for dumb developers like me trying to maintain consistency throughout the program.

Also some features like bounding boxes, masking and textfields had to be done the raw way for effective rendering and decision making. So my idea was that since processing offers a very good base/ground for drawing graphics an effective wrapper could be written to ease the development using processing(Java) such that people do not have to wonder about how to use processing (relatively to learning plash way of implementation) but rather focus on the application logic. I had to figure out a framework for adapting but fortunately the idea of flash was already there in me which I thought would be a great model. Having known the model, mechanism and the signatures of flash, I started with this mission.

To highlight, the current version of plash supports basic graphic drawing with options to draw circles, rectangles, ellipses and custom shapes with moveTo and lineTo. And other than the abilities of drawing it can render basic textfields without input'able capacity. Also it supports masking of shapes on the same level(belonging to the same parent).

With this post, what is that I wish to say?

Happy to inform that the framework can be used.
Would be happy for someone with greater ideas about processing in guiding this project to the next level.
Also I am looking for people to help on the textfield implementation.
A bigger dream is to port it for processing IDE and eventually use the same code to generate Android and Javascript (Its fair to be very greedy here)
The final step will be to write the animation framework using the Tween library (if it exists use it, or write a new one)

The possible pitfalls that can be anticipated or to be watched out for

The library has not been tested with lots and lots of graphic objects (at least 1000 maybe?)

The library can be used only with Java environments like Netbeans and Eclipse (As of yet)

Here is the candy (hope it's not bitter)

http://code.google.com/p/plash/

Finally a big thanks to the processing community and to each and every one reading this post and wishing to use the library.

Regards,

#0K Srinivasan

www.hashok.com

Replies(6)

aalavandh..

Re: Announcing Plash - A flash model framework for Processing.

10 months ago

Dear Friends,

I am happy to say that the version of plash has stabilized a lot than the previous one. In this version of plash it supports the masking feature which flash has.

Also a lot of optimizations have been done in the background. Certain things like textfield editing, bounding calculation is a bit itchy but not showstoppers.

But I am happy to say that without any scratching of the head I have completed my assignment using plash and it has turned out good.

Once again thanks to processing team for having made this wonderful library/software.

Regards,

#0K Srinivasan

www.hashok.com

PhiLho

Re: Announcing Plash - A flash model framework for Processing.

10 months ago

Not being a Flash programmer at all, I haven't dig into your library yet, but perhaps it can be useful as is, as kind of scenegraph manager, if I understood it correctly.
For the animation library, search the forum for these words.
There is an Ani library, apparently, with easing, and ijeomamotion, and perhaps others.

The fact your library cannot be used in the PDE can refrain from testing it for lot of people here, but perhaps it is easy to make it work nice with regular Processing workflow. Maybe somebody can take a look at your code (me, if I ever find the time?).

aalavandh..

Re: Announcing Plash - A flash model framework for Processing.

10 months ago

Dear PhiLho,

Firstly, appreciating you for taken time to reply and having thought of helping the library by looking at the code (when you find time). I am very pleased by this.

Secondly, It is completely my bad that I did not mention in my last post that it can very well be used with the processing IDE using the StageProxy class which takes the PApplet window("this") as a parameter. Though I am not able to drive the events till now but have figured out where the problem is. Since I am running short on my assignment deadline am completely focusing on it right now which ends 2mrw.

After this I am planning to make the events work in the PDE and then will start that task of migrating to Javascript implementation of the library with the current stable framework. What I am afraid though is that if i start converting my Java classes to Javascript by manual process, then any changes in the Java class should also be reflected in the direct javascript representations(again manually). Again any change in the framework or functionality will result in a huge rework which i seriously with all common sense would like to avoid. Rather I am thinking of any good converter that can convert my Java classes to Javascript. Looked at GWT(google webkit development) but did not get the hang of it yet. Maybe I am now under pressure from my assignment deadline and hence the problem of understanding it. But it all ends 2mrw and will in a relaxed fashion but with full concentration seriously think of porting the library to the javascript version.

Any ideas on the porting part will be greatly appreciated.

Regards,

#0K Srinivasan

http://www.hashok.com

fouchtre

Re: Announcing Plash - A flash model framework for Processing.

10 months ago

That's funny !

I'm doing exactly the same thing than you right now : porting flash in processing !

I think it could be great to mix my framework and yours at the end because I did some stuffs you didn't , and you did some stuffs I didn't :)

But for the moment, I prefer to finish my code (I started it a month ago, I can't give up now)

(sorry for my poor english)

aalavandh..

Re: Announcing Plash - A flash model framework for Processing.

10 months ago

Dear fouchtre,

As the saying goes "I have one apple, you have one apple, yet we give each other what we have and still we end up with only one apple. But I know something, you know something and yet we give each other what we know and we end up knowing two things"

Cheers mate. If you can care to give the url for the source code, then would be happy to look into what has been done and we can see if the individual porting can be mixed and blended to make the perfect cocktail.

Regards,

#0K Srinivasan

fouchtre

Re: Announcing Plash - A flash model framework for Processing.

10 months ago

Hello Aalavandhaan !

Of course I will post my code, but not today :)

I'm working on it and have not even test it with more than 5-6 moving objects... It's far from being completed but I think I could post an alpha version at the end of the week. It maybe doesn't work as fast as expected, we'll see, I really don't know...

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