SWF server side compiler with MTASC

I never thought at this before but it was so obvious!! …put the mtasc binary on remote server and let it create swf on the fly!
HOSHI Tetsuya put toghether a server side swf compiler using mtasc (http://hossy.net, Everything is unreadable… just click on ENTER 🙂 ).
He also published the source code (php files): http://hossy.net/sssc.zip
http://hossy.net/

ActionStep Alpha 1 Released!

ActionStep crew released the first alpha release of ActionStep component framework.
It’s been a while since I’m looking at this project and I must admit they’re doing a great and hard work.
What is ActionStep?
ActionStep is an Actionscript 2.0 implementation of a subset of the OpenStep Application Kit and aim to be a valid alternative to Flash V2 Components.
The alpha 1 release comes with an example (through buildExample.bat, which compile using MTASC). See the example here
Links
ActionStep on OSFlash: http://osflash.org/doku.php?id=actionstep
ActionStep components’ list: http://osflash.org/actionstep_components_list
Download
It can be downloaded from: actionstep_alpha_1.zip
http://actionstep.org/

mtascGUI

mtascGUI Reading today the MTASC mailing list I’ve read that a new Windows GUI for MTASC has been just release.
Quoting the author words: “after setting all the options (e.g. all mtasc paramters) you can switch to a small window, called ‘launch bar’, that will always stay on top of other applications, so that compiling with mtasc is only one click away, no matter where you are in your editor. This launch bar also lets you choose in which FlashPlayer version you would like to open your swf-file (options are 6, 7 and 8, provided that you install the standalone players that come with the flash ide’s)…”
What is MTASC?
MTASC is the first ActionScript 2 Open Source free compiler
http://www.kugelfunk.de/as/english/

Flying away… holidays!!

Before leaving for my holidays i just want to make a quick post about the recent SE|PY additions…

1. Quick search bar

sepy quick search

The new “quick search” bar at the bottom. Thanks to Eric Dolecki who suggested me a more usable and fast to use “search” control (thanks also to Eric new icons suggestions!)
I use Mozilla Firefox from more than one year, i love the way it has implemented the find bar, and I never thought at using it in SEPY? yes.. that’s true 🙂

2. Right border enhancement

This is directly taken from an Eclipse feature i like a lot.
For every bookmarked line or line with a “TODO” comment you will have in the right side of each document a small clickable rectangle, with different colors, which show you the absolute position of that line in the document.
When you move the mouse over that rect you will see a tooltip telling you the content of the line and click on it for move to that line.
Nothing particular, but I found it really useful.
It’s now possible to customize the words SEPY is looking for (not only “todo”, but what you want)
Moreover, with the last addition of a sqlite database once you open a document for the second time you will see all the previous bookmarked lines, and the cursor will be placed in the same position you previously closed the document.

MTASC compile

Last addition is the mtasc compile dialog.
Using this dialog window you can compile yuor script in SEPY using the mtasc compiler and see in the same dialog a preview of the created SWF.
BTW, I will leave for my holidays on Monday (destination Tallinn, Estonia).
See ya again by the end of August.. and great holidays to you all!!
http://sourceforge.net/

mtasc 1.04 have been released

I just read today about the new release of MTASC.
Changes are :

  • “for” optional first parameter and expression
  • fixed while( o )++ i;
  • added error when duplicate import statement (with same or different package)
  • added class-exist import check => import will now link classes
  • fixed typing error with single “var” in a block
  • fixed parser error with a?b:c and big left-expression
  • fixed bug when catching “imported” exception class
  • changed boolean operators typing
  • added -flash6 for F6 compilation
  • added -trace for custom trace function
  • added optional color component for header

About new -trace: you can new use TRACE(….) (uppercase) in your code. such calls will be eithere removed if you don’t specify -trace from MTASC commandline or will be replaced by -trace specified function. Exemple :

class A {
  	function test() {
  		TRACE("hello !");
  	}
  }

when calling mtasc -trace MyClass.myLogFunction will be compiled as : MyClass.myLogFunction(“hello !”, “A::test”, “A.as”, 3 );
This way you can get class name , method name, file and line from which the trace occured, and log them using your custom trace function.
It’s a while i’m using mtasc integrated in sepy for checking syntax and I’m very happy how it works, checking syntax better than MM internal compiler…

download MTASC

Latest SE|PY changes

A little update on the latest software changes.

– I recently added the possibility to use “Abbreviations”, like happens in Scintilla|Scite. Basically they are a set of abbreviated words (e.g. “if”,”fun”,”forin”) which, after pressing a shortcut key, will be expanded into an expanded expression (and pointing the cursor at the position you described in the abbreviation manager panel).
– All the bookmarked lines are now always availables under the bookmark menu.
Just select one of the menu item to go to the specified line.
– Another addition is the Chinese (Simplified & Traditional) dialogs & menu language support (thanks to Deng Jie for this)
– In the Upcoming 1.0.68 version there will be also the possibility to add optional params to be passed to the MTASC compiler.
If “-v” option is passed a dialog window will be opened after the check syntax process, grabbing all the verbose messages printed by mtasc.

SE|PY and MTASC

In the latest version of SEPY I’ve added a syntax checker (as many developers pray for), and now SEPY uses MTASC as engine for checking actionscript syntax.
You just need to download MTASC and set the binary path of the compiler in sepy preferences.
The testing version of sepy is available at sourceforge.
A useful feature of this integration is that, if an error is found, the file containing the error will be automatically opened in the exact position of the error.
P.S.
Note that MTASC engine is slightly different than the Macromedia internal compiler. You can see the comparison in the mtasc homepage.

Download MTASC

MTASC : Motion-Twin ActionScript 2 Compiler

MTASC is the first ActionScript 2 Open Source free compiler.
Right now it’s a command line compiler which get .as files as input and will generate .swf files as output. This means it can be easily integrated into any editor which can run command line tools (such as sepy).
It seems MTASC is more and more quickly than the internal flash compiler:
MTASC is based on the best compiler technology available (namely the OCaml programming language) and thus provide a great speed improvement over MMC (compile around 100 classes in less than 5 seconds).
Since the source code is made more concise by using good technology, it is more easy to maintain and implement robust and proven typing algorithms. The feedback we get from Open Source community help us fixes the bug quickly.

It’s made using OCaml as programming language.
The mailing list is available at this link: http://lists.motion-twin.com/mailman/listinfo/mtasc
For examples, download and bugs refer to the linked MTASC page.