AIR on Linux and roadmap

An interesting announcement has been made by Adobe last month - that went unnoticed almost. This relates to AIR on Linux. This post highlights the announcement.

Public announcement from Adobe:

http://blogs.adobe.com/flashplayer/2011/06/adobe-air-and-linux-increasing-distribution-on-devices.html

....

To support the variety of Linux-based platforms across PCs and devices, we are prioritizing a Linux porting kit for AIR (including source code), which Open Screen Project (OSP) partners can use to complete implementations of AIR for Linux-based platforms on PCs, mobile devices, TVs and TV-connected devices. We will no longer be releasing our own versions of Adobe AIR and the AIR SDK for desktop Linux, but expect that one or more of our partners will do so. The last Adobe release of AIR for desktop Linux is AIR 2.6. By focusing on the porting kit and support of partner implementations, we expect to provide broader support for AIR across Linux-based PCs and devices, whereas our own desktop Linux releases have accounted for less than 0.5% of lifetime AIR downloads.

....

Optimised Flash10.2 now available for DM3730 (Linux)

An updated and more optimised version of Flash10.2 on Linux, for DM3730 is now available at the TI Flash10 download request page (http://focus.ti.com/docs/toolsw/folders/print/adobeflash-a8.html).

From the release notes, snippets below:

• This drop fixes issues in H264 NALU handling for guardian.co.uk website streams
  
• Improves i/o performanc
• Uses TIBLT API accelerated library
  
• Removes redundant buffer copies
• Removed redundant object creations to optimise memory further
• Reduced watermark bar size to make it visually smaller
  
• Validated with latest DM3730 DVSDK 4.02

This is an update to the earlier version, as posted earlier in below link.

http://tigraphics.blogspot.com/2011/04/using-hw-accelerator-in-dm3730-for.html

Flash10.2 plugin available now for Linux and Android on TI platforms !

Following the earlier blog posts on the new architecture and updates on Flash10.2 and HW acceleration, the TI Flash10.2 - plugin capable of accelerating media playback on DM3730, is now available at the Flash10 request site.

http://focus.ti.com/docs/toolsw/folders/print/adobeflash-a8.html

HW Accelerated Flash10 Presentation (not just decode)

Flashplayer 10.2 debuted this week, with improved video performance. One of the key features that 10.2 brings in, is StageVideo - that can use not just HW acceleration for Video decoding, but also uses HW for other display related actions (compositing, scaling, colour conversion).

What does it really require, and how is it achieved ? The less documented facts are below, on how to make this work. Note that the focus is on using the GPU.

"To make sure stage video will be available, you must use wmode="direct" at all times. This mode is highly recommended for video playback. It uses Direct3D on Windows and OpenGL on Mac OS and Linux to actually perform video frame compositing directly through the GPU. The limitation is that, in this mode, Flash Player runs in its own context and having overlapping HTML content on top of the player is not possible, for instance. If you decide to go with any other mode, such as wmode="window", wmode="opaque", or wmode="transparent", you highly decrease the chances (see note) to have stage video available. As a result, for consistency, it is highly recommended to use wmode="direct" at all times."How good would it be if this could be

The Flash10 HW accelerated version from TI will be going live soon, look out in this section.

Links:
http://www.adobe.com/products/flashplayer/features/
http://www.adobe.com/devnet/flashplayer/articles/stage_video.html
TI Graphics SDK - and Frameworks

Drawing Gradients in 12 different ways on TI Graphics SDKs !

Gradients are very critical for enabling rich user interfaces to provide a pseudo 3D effect. This short update provides an overview of all the Graphics methods supported on various TI Graphics offerings, including HTML5, Qt, AS3, WinCE and Android.

Sl No	Drawing API and Web Link	Rendering Model	TI Implementation
1	Usage in Webkit (CSS3 based)
	http://webkit.org/blog/175/introducing-css-gradients/	Immediate	Available in Qt, and Angstrom/OE
2	Usage in Mozilla (CSS3 based)		Available in Qt, and Angstrom/OE
	https://developer.mozilla.org/en/Using_gradients	Immediate
3	Qt Gradients in 4.7 with QML		Available in Qt, and Angstrom/OE
	http://doc.qt.nokia.com/4.7-snapshot/qml-gradient.html	Immediate
4	Qt Gradients with the Qt non-QML API		Available in Qt, and Angstrom/OE
	http://processors.wiki.ti.com/index.php/XgxPerf_HMI#Article_2-_Using_Gradients_and_Masks_in_Qt_for_Industrial_HMI_development	Immediate
5	Gradients with ActionScript 3 in Flash10		http://focus.ti.com/docs/toolsw/folders/print/adobeflash-a8.html
	http://help.adobe.com/en_US/ActionScript/3.0_ProgrammingAS3/WS5b3ccc516d4fbf351e63e3d118a9b90204-7dd7.html	Deferred
6	Gradients with Cairo	Immediate	Available in Angstrom/OE
	http://cairographics.org/documentation/cairomm/reference/classCairo_1_1Gradient.html
7	Gradient configuration for widgets in GTK	N.A	Available in Angstrom/OE
	http://library.gnome.org/devel//gtk/2.91/GtkCssProvider.html
8	Gradients with Clutter (OpenGL/ES based. OpenGL/ES itself does not have direct Gradient support, so is a mixture of Vertex colours, Shaders, or Texture blending)	Deferred by nature of the OpenGL/ES engine implementation in TI SOCs	Available in Angstrom/OE
	http://lists.o-hand.com/clutter/1787.html
9	Gradients with .NET (including the Compact Framework supported in WinCE)	Immediate (Deferred mode available for some)	http://focus.ti.com/docs/toolsw/folders/print/wincesdk-a8.html
	http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/s6fxh562%28v=vs.71%29.aspx
10	Gradients with GDI	Immediate (Deferred mode available for some)	http://focus.ti.com/docs/toolsw/folders/print/wincesdk-a8.html
	http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cwka53ef.aspx
11	Gradients with Inkscape for SVG	N.A	http://inkscape.org/
	http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/Advanced_Gradients
12	Gradients in Android Graphics	Immediate	http://code.google.com/p/rowboat/
	http://developer.android.com/reference/android/graphics/LinearGradient.html

Tools and Benchmark examples with source code for CSS3, Flash and Qt

1. XgxPerf samples for Gradients and source code for complex examples with SVG Gradients

https://gforge.ti.com/gf/download/docmanfileversion/256/4266/xgxperf_svn78.tar.gz

2. GUIMark2 comparison of Flex and HTML5 performance

http://www.craftymind.com/guimark2/

3. Online CSS3 Gradient code generator

http://gradients.glrzad.com/

4. Online ActionScript3 based Gradient code generator

http://active.tutsplus.com/tutorials/actionscript/how-to-create-gradients-with-actionscript/