maemo.org - Talk - [ANNOUNCE] Flash Launcher

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- - [ANNOUNCE] Flash Launcher (https://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?t=52275)

[ANNOUNCE] Flash Launcher

I announce FlashLauncher for Maemo, your premier source for flash-based standalone content. The central focus is to build a central repository of N900-friendly flash content, but there are many other benefits as well.

A Note regarding the 'special' PR1.2 situation:
If you have a N8x0, N900 PR1.2 or later, install FlashLauncher. If you have N900 PR1.0 or 1.1, install FlashLauncher (experimental)

A quick QA:

Q: What ?
A: Qt based GUI front end that launches your favourite flash games^H^H^H^H applications

Q: Why ? (Why not MicroB ?)
A:

Less overhead
No intrusive elements (e.g. fullscreen button in corner)
No cursor mode switching needed
Verified list of working N900/N8*0 compatible content
Ability to run games that are not just a swf (think greasemonkey)
Force quality
Avoid ad or multiple flash element filled html pages
Force fullscreen support
Proper portrait mode support
Choose between WebKit, MicroB and KMPlayer plugin interfaces
Easily browsable interface with instructions/caveats
Support potential third party flash content distribution through maemo.org infrastructure

Q: How does it look like ?
A: I cobbled together a version that is able to launch flash apps through a rudimentary GUI interface (in Qt, and no, you don't need PR1.2 to use it). See attached screenshot.

Q: It's huge ! Why don't you optify it ?
A: It's optified. To operate, it requires Qt libraries, which, however, Nokia chose not to optify.

Q: What's the difference between flashlauncher and flashlauncher-experimental ?
A: Flashlauncher links against the stable libqt4-*, flashlauncher-experimental links against the bleeding edge libqt5-maemo5 or libqt4-experimental

Q: How many apps are in the database ?
A: The initial package ships with just 4 games in the database, and I would like to you ask YOU, the community gamer, to list your favourite flash game/app so it could be entered in flashlauncher's database.

Q: What exactly are you using to display flash ?
A: FlashLauncher has 5 'engines'. Two are via Qt's QtWebKit module, two via MicroB, and the last one is KMPlayer (if installed). I'll make a wiki page soonish to explain the difference and why you would want to use one over the other.

Q: My flash requires javascript, cookies, parameters, html elements, etc
A: The WebKit html and MicroB html engines allow you to load the flash via a page you construct yourself (and even inject javascript, a la greasemonkey). Check the global section of the config file for an example.

Q: How do I submit a game for inclusion into flashlauncher ?
A: It's quite simple. The db is a human readable file, /usr/share/flashlauncher/applications.conf so just write an entry based on the currently present ones and submit it in this thread (or PM me). It's really simple and fairly self-explanatory. For the impatient, here's an example:

Code:

[bloxorz]

name=Bloxorz

image=http://www.passionforpuzzles.com/blog/uploaded-images-2007/bloxorz.jpg

description=A platform puzzle game

instructions=Use cursor keys to move. Get the block to fall into the square hole to progress to the next level. 

engine=1

swf=http://www.miniclip.com/games/bloxorz/en/bloxorz_miniclip.swf

quality=low

fullscreen=1

size=2280

That's all ! Comments, games, feedback, (reasonable :) ) feature requests welcome ! Currently in extras-devel, extras-testing/extras timeline will depend on the responses here.

PS Please do not submit commercial or illegal content. Thank you.