OpenFL
ScreenshotOpenFL Stack.png
DeveloperOpenFL Contributors
Released30 May 2013 (age 13)[1]
Programming languageHaxe
Operating systemMicrosoft Windows, macOS, Linux[2][1]
PlatformMicrosoft Windows, macOS, Linux, iOS, Android, Flash Player, HTML5[2][1]
GenreSoftware framework
LicenseMIT License[3]

OpenFL is a free and open-source software framework and platform for the creation of multi-platform applications and video games.[4][5] OpenFL applications can be written in Haxe, JavaScript (EcmaScript 5 or 6+), or TypeScript,[6] 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.[7]

The most popular editors used for Haxe and OpenFL development[8] are:

OpenFL contains Haxe ports of major graphical libraries such as Away3D,[10][11][12] Starling,[13][14] Babylon.js,[15] Adobe Flash and DragonBones.[16][17] 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,[18] including Papers, Please, Rymdkapsel, Lightbot, Friday Night Funkin', and Madden NFL Mobile.

OpenFL was created by Joshua Granick and is currently administered and maintained by Chris Speciale, software engineer, board member, and co-owner.[19]

Technical details

OpenFL

OpenFL is designed to fully mirror the Flash API.[1][5] SWF files created with Adobe Flash Professional or other authoring tools may be used in OpenFL programs.[5]

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.[20] Certain features (shape.graphics or bitmapData.draw) will use CPU rendering, but the display list remains GPU accelerated as far as possible.[20]

Lime

OpenFL uses the Lime library for low-level rendering. Lime provides hardware-accelerated rendering of vector graphics on all supported platforms.[21][20]

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.[20] 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.[20]

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.[22][23][24][25] 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.[23][26] Haxe also includes platform-specific application programming interface (API) for Adobe Flash, C++, PHP and other languages.[23][27]

Haxe originated with the idea of supporting client-side and server-side programming in one language, and simplifying the communication logic between them.[28][29][30] Code written in the Haxe language can be source-to-source compiled into ActionScript 3, JavaScript, Java, C++, C#, PHP, Python, Lua[31] and Node.js.[23][26][32][33] 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.[20] It uses a custom Stage3D implementation, and does not require the OpenFL display list to work.[20][34]

References

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

See also