August 16, 2005
ScreenWeaver back from the dead...
... and released as Open Source Software!
Not too long ago on the OS Flash list I started a discussion about the External Interface API and how it could be used to create synchronous projectors. I talked about reviving my SharpFlash project, and also, without thinking anything would happen out of it, talked about possibly contacting the ScreenWeaver folks to see if we could use their codebase since it's been dormant for so long and no longer a commercial product.
Much to my surprise, Edwin wrote me back and said this was something he was considering. After a few conversations back and forth and figuring out the logistics of it all, I'm happy to say that Edwin has decided to release the source code for ScreenWeaver.
Currently we're (he, mostly) in the process of cleaning it up a little bit and bringing it up to date so that it compiles with the newest Visual Studio. It was built with Visual C++ 6.0, and thus is a bit dated. I'm also working out a command-line build option, so that you can build ScreenWeaver without having to pay for a copy of Visual Studio and just use Microsoft's freely available C+ Toolkit.
Stay tuned.. the code is almost ready to go and we're ironing out some details and writing some developer documentation. This is *huge* news. ScreenWeaver was the most amazing projector creator for so long, and now that it's going to be updated with ExternalInterface to support synchronous communication, it's going to be rise to the top of the projector list again!
The roadmap is to release the source code for ScreenWeaver 3 and SWCore as it is now (updated to work with Flash 7/8). Then, we'll work on adding ExternalInterface support for a synchronous API. Following that, we'll be looking at using wxWindows and the Flash Netscape Plugin to provide a cross-platform solution since ScreenWeaver is Windows-only.
ScreenWeaver lives! Thanks Edwin, Thomas, and Martijn for all of your hard work and this wonderful decision! I'm really glad I threw the idea out there to contact them.. Fate works like that sometimes :-)
Comments
This is great news!
I'm still using screenweaver 2 but since there is no support I was considering moving to Zinc. Now I won't have to. Hopefully Screenweaver 3 will be the best of the bunch as it used to be.
Sebastian
Posted by: Sebastian at August 16, 2005 06:55 PM
this is most excellent! I have a screenweaver app i wrote thats been acting funny since i installed the player 8 beta, and was quite sad to see it wasnt supported anymore.. im looking forward to this.
Posted by: alessandro at August 16, 2005 11:37 PM
Zinc got hot after screenweaver stopped. but after trying. the launch time for Zinc projector is relatively longer than screenweaver (as slow as a director projector's launch time). hoping that the new screenweaver will keep that nice concern.
Posted by: hoyin at August 17, 2005 01:57 AM
Sweet. Now all we need is for us OS X developers to put our minds together and create a projector tool for OS X based on the Screenweaver code base!
Posted by: Jon Bradley at August 17, 2005 07:40 AM
"Following that, we'll be looking at using wxWindows and the Flash Netscape Plugin to provide a cross-platform solution since ScreenWeaver is Windows-only."
Wouldn't that make it OSX compatible?-e
Posted by: ethan at August 17, 2005 12:37 PM
Correct, currently Screenweaver is Windows-only, but we have plans of exploring options to build a cross platform solution in the future.
Posted by: darron at August 17, 2005 12:48 PM
does anyone know where i can get Screenweaver version 2? i have v3 the Beta version but its very buggy!
cheers
Posted by: jon at September 11, 2005 02:48 AM