Hey all,

I’m kind of a long time lurker and I’ve been a big fan of AWAY3d since 1.X, back when all everyone knew about was PaperVision. I’m glad this project flourished because the API was so much better.

For the past year I’ve been doing some HMTL 5 multimedia experiments and I’m totally psyched about AWAY3d Typescript (AND Starling! It’s too good to be true!)

BUT… (and no offense intended).. I am wondering where’s all the discussion and excitement on these forums? I’m concerned that if there isn’t something publicly ready for production use soon, Typescript and away3D will lose the all-important early mover advantage, and we’ll be stuck with programming in raw Javascript with some other inferior library as the defacto standard for web multimedia. Because everyone I talk to basically says Flash development is being blacklisted from commercial sites left and right. Hate to say this but its true. It’s time for me to prepare for the future, and since I want to do multimedia it’s gonna have to be something that people will hire me for (HTML).

If there’s anywhere other than these forums where people are using and talking about Away3D Typescript please let me know. Or if there’s some way I can help (with my limited time available)

PS This is NOT done with AWAY3d Typescript but planning to port it:
http://snazzyrobot.com/projects/wglmolview/index.html

(The old flash version was done with AWAY3d, long ago.)

Let’s try and start the discussion here.

This is my take on it. I may well be missing out on something, so please let me know

First off, I can still sell AS3 solutions so I’m not desperate to switch to JS right now. Once the customer understands the price difference between building and maintaining WebGL solutions, and the fact they don’t run out-of-the-box on iPad, or in Internet Explorer, they generally agree, that despite the anti-flash hype, the truth is that AS3 is still the more ubiquitous solution and definitely the most economic. Having actual apps instead of browser based apps for Android and iOS can be viewed as positively advantageous, both marketing and turnover wise, which I guess is what’s holding back WebGL in iOS browsers.

Typescript doesn’t give me anything extra so far.
My own experiments with WebGL have been with the excellent three.js library, which I’m sure you’d agree is the defacto standard today. Though I love Away3D and have worked with it for many years, I don’t see three.js as being in any way inferior. In fact it has some performance advantages in some environments, and there appear to be many contributors adding interesting effects all the time.

Adoption is of course key for rapid development. In AS3 you can find libraries/examples for just about anything.
In three.js you can also find open source examples of many things, and integration examples with other libraries, tutorials, etc.

Typescript and Away3D is in it’s infancy. If I could see any gains, I’d use it.
So far it’s just an extra hoop to jump through to make my codebase incompatible with iOS and IE.

I appreciate that having a language that is truly Object Orientated and compiles to javascript would be more scalable and easier to maintain than plain javascript.
It seemed to me Adobe were migrating to DART(?)

It can be hard to know which way to jump. JS to me is like going back to FlashMX (fun but unstructured), so as long as people want mobile applications with web equivalents that run in ALL PC/Mac browsers from a common codebase, I’ll stick with AS3 and see what develops. 

HTML5 is being mis-sold as the answer to everything. I have heard salespeople list up the capabilities (including 3D) without explaining that not all those capabilities are available on all devices. While some IT companies view spiraling development costs as success, personally I don’t want to have to explain to a CEO why he can’t use IE, or that it’s going to take 6 months to port to iPad.

It’s easier just to disable right-click in Flash, and then most people would never even know what development language you used :O)
They’re just delighted you delivered on time, on budget, and can quickly make changes across the board, when they get a new idea.

That’s my reality, I’d be glad to hear others.

Cheers!

Hey blakflag

Don’t worry, you’re in the right place to talk about Away3D Typescript! We do recognise that the site needs a bit of reorganising to accomodate new platforms - options are being considered but progress is slower than we’d like due to the complexity of any site upgrade.

There is also a fair bit of work being done on the Typescript APIs which you’ll hear more about at the end of the month, and of course the addition of a 2D lib is adding to the amount of work to be done there.

If you’re concerned about not being able to use Away3D TS in future, why not help out? You are welcome to create your own area for Away3D TS discussion, sharing demos, tutorials etc, or even assist with the reorg. PM me if you’re interested, we have some ideas for improving community involvement and it would be great to get your feedback

Hi Rob, I see you’ve been doing some workshops with Away TS.
Have they been recorded? Are they available online?

I’m sure that could wet our appetites

No, the workshops are day-long group sessions and don’t really lend themselves to recording.

More workshops should be happening this year in various places around Europe - look out for more information on the blog. If you think your company or user group would be interested in hosting a workshop, let me know!

MightyAtom, thanks for the thoughtful reply. I acknowledge all of your points, in fact I did use the excellent three.js for my own HTML project. I’ve also used create.js framework for some 2D prototype work.

As much as I think both of these are fine, every person has their own set of needs and for me Away and Starling are a bit nicer. But the biggest selling point for me is being able to use Typescript instead of Javascript. Many people say “oh, the differences are minor”.. I totally disagree. When one takes a look at Typescripts feature set, it brings some incredibly powerful features to the table… Generics, classical OOP, concise lambdas, namespaces, interfaces & structural typing (holy crap!). In many ways it even blows AS3 out of the water. My belief is that having successful frameworks natively in Typescript lands a lot of weight to the argument to use that language as a programming environment when pitching development plans to management.

So.. when I ask myself which platform I want to create large codebases in for the next 10 years, is it Flash? (unfortunately no longer), or is it Javascript (NO!).. or Typescript (yes). To further this end, I’m willing to go through a fair amount of short term pain while the lagging browsers mature, in order to be at an advantage as people start demanding more complex stuff in HTML.

Also, perhaps my particular niche may lend itself more to being able to deal with abandoning certain browsers, because we sell rather complex multimedia products to institutions (which need to be delivered via browser and mobile) but to some extent we can dictate what browsers must be used. And I’m hoping that with solutions like Phonegap etc, that HTML will be able to also go into the mobile space packaged as an app.

Rob, thanks! I will try to help out in some way. I will think about what capacity that might be. At least I will be happy to work on some prototypes using Away / Starling TS.

I’ve noticed a number of updates on the AwayJS GitHub the last few weeks.

Looking forward to testing some revisions!

Thanks in advance guys.