Widgets: Openmoko/Chumby transproject?

[Jesse Ross]

> I do believe there are open source apps to create flash files,  
> however, I'm
> no expert on the subject and am too lazy to hunt for links right  
> now :p
> maybe someone who's had experience on this side of things could say
> something on their quality.

I _am_ a Flash designer/developer, and there are some very nice tools  
out there for doing Flash development in an open source way. There  
really is no equivalent for the visual-design portion of the Flash  
editing application, but MTASC is a Flash compiler that is very, very  
nice.

http://www.mtasc.org/

There is also a web site called Open Source Flash that lists similar  
open source projects useful for creating Flash content:

http://osflash.org/

>> Also, flash based UIs I seen while looking good
>> are quite slow and jerky even on powerful (and power consuming)  
>> desktop
>> machines so they're hardly usable.Of course this is my own private
>> opinition and it is safe to ignore it.

It depends on the designer/developer. Just as there are many, many  
bad C/C++ applications, and many, many bad HTML sites, there are  
many, many bad Flash interfaces. But, there will always be some  
really amazing, responsive examples of Flash interfaces, done by  
people who understand the limitations of the technology and ways  
around those limitations.

> There are some youtube vids of the prototype chumby in action where it
> doesn't look too sluggish - it has similar specs to the p1 fic1973,  
> however
> it is running an adobe closed source flash player that may be  
> faster than
> gnash.

This is possibly true. I did talk to the lead developer of Gnash a  
few months back, however, and he said that they did recently get  
Gnash to play YouTube videos. So, I'm guessing it's not too terribly  
slow (I haven't checked the progress on it lately).

> I personally like the idea of having a ui that is designable by  
> people who
> work on websites who have more design skills than the average c  
> haxxor...
> Combined with an onboard webserver, one could do some fun things like
> transplant the phone's ui to whatever full computer you have handy.

It opens up the phone to a whole different realm of developers, and  
that, in my opinion, is the best aspect of getting something like  
Gnash/Flash on the phone.

> It would be fun to run some chumby things on the fic but I would  
> imagine
> *JUST* having a flash ui might be limiting for some projects - as a  
> musician
> I would dread using a flash metronome, it would never have the  
> timing of
> gtick.

As a Flash developer, even I wouldn't want that. Options are good,  
especially considering the open nature of the phone.

J.



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