Lightspark

Last updated
Lightspark
Developer(s) Alessandro Pignotti
Stable release
0.8.7 [1] / May 28, 2023;4 months ago (2023-05-28)
Repository
Written in C++
Operating system Linux, FreeBSD, Windows
Type Multimedia
License LGPLv3
Website lightspark.github.io

Lightspark is a free and open-source SWF player released under the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL) version 3. [1]

Contents

Features

Lightspark supports most of ActionScript 3.0 and has an NPAPI plug-in. [2] It will fall back on Gnash, a free SWF player on ActionScript 1.0 and 2.0 (AVM1) code.

Lightspark supports OpenGL-based rendering and LLVM-based ActionScript execution and uses OpenGL shaders (GLSL). The player is compatible with H.264 Flash videos on YouTube.

Portability

The Lightspark player is completely portable. [3] It has been successfully built on Ubuntu 11.04 (Natty Narwhal) on PowerPC, x86, ARM and AMD64 architectures. [4] Lightspark has a Win32 branch for Microsoft Visual Studio [5] and introduced a Mozilla-compatible plug-in for Windows in version 0.5.3. Since then, the project hasn't seen any official Windows release, but newer versions are continuously built and made available through Jenkins. [6]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Adobe Flash</span> Deprecated multimedia platform used to add animation and interactivity to websites

Adobe Flash is a multimedia software platform used for production of animations, rich internet applications, desktop applications, mobile apps, mobile games, and embedded web browser video players.

Media Player Classic (MPC), Media Player Classic - Home Cinema (MPC-HC), and Media Player Classic - Black Edition (MPC-BE) are a family of free and open-source, compact, lightweight, and customizable media players for 32-bit and 64-bit Microsoft Windows. The original MPC, along with the MPC-HC fork, mimic the simplistic look and feel of Windows Media Player 6.4, but provide most options and features available in modern media players. Variations of the original MPC and its forks are standard media players in the K-Lite Codec Pack and the Combined Community Codec Pack.

SWF is an Adobe Flash file format used for multimedia, vector graphics and ActionScript. Originating with FutureWave Software, then transferred to Macromedia, and then coming under the control of Adobe, SWF files can contain animations or applets of varying degrees of interactivity and function. They may also occur in programs, commonly browser games, using ActionScript.

Cairo (graphics) Vector graphics-based software library

Cairo is an open-source graphics library that provides a vector graphics-based, device-independent API for software developers. It provides primitives for two-dimensional drawing across a number of different back ends. Cairo uses hardware acceleration when available.

Adobe Flash Player is computer software for viewing multimedia contents, executing rich Internet applications, and streaming audio and video content created on the Adobe Flash platform. It can run from a web browser as a browser plug-in or independently on supported devices. Originally created by FutureWave under the name FutureSplash Player, it was renamed to Macromedia Flash Player after Macromedia acquired FutureWave in 1996. It was then developed and distributed by Adobe Systems as Flash Player after Adobe acquired Macromedia in 2005. It is currently developed and distributed by Zhongcheng for users in China, and by Harman International for enterprise users outside of China, in collaboration with Adobe.

Flash Video is a container file format used to deliver digital video content over the Internet using Adobe Flash Player version 6 and newer. Flash Video content may also be embedded within SWF files. There are two different Flash Video file formats: FLV and F4V. The audio and video data within FLV files are encoded in the same way as SWF files. The F4V file format is based on the ISO base media file format, starting with Flash Player 9 update 3. Both formats are supported in Adobe Flash Player and developed by Adobe Systems. FLV was originally developed by Macromedia. In the early 2000s, Flash Video was the de facto standard for web-based streaming video. Users include Hulu, VEVO, Yahoo! Video, metacafe, Reuters.com, and many other news providers.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gnash (software)</span> Media player for playing SWF files

Gnash is a media player for playing SWF files. Gnash is available both as a standalone player for desktop computers and embedded devices, as well as a plugin for the browsers still supporting NPAPI. It is part of the GNU Project and is a free and open-source alternative to Adobe Flash Player. It was developed from the gameswf project.

NoScript is a free and open-source extension for Firefox- and Chromium-based web browsers, written and maintained by Giorgio Maone, an Italian software developer and member of the Mozilla Security Group.

MTASC is an ActionScript 2.0 compiler written in the OCaml programming language by the company Motion Twin. It is free software and can be used alone or with other tools like swfmill to produce SWF files, which contain interactive multimedia content playable with the Flash Player. MTASC is also much faster than the Adobe Flash ActionScript compiler.

Web3D, also called 3D Web, is a group of technologies to display and navigate websites using 3D computer graphics.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">WebGL</span> JavaScript bindings for OpenGL in web browsers

WebGL is a JavaScript API for rendering interactive 2D and 3D graphics within any compatible web browser without the use of plug-ins. WebGL is fully integrated with other web standards, allowing GPU-accelerated usage of physics, image processing, and effects in the HTML canvas. WebGL elements can be mixed with other HTML elements and composited with other parts of the page or page background.

Modern HTML5 has feature-parity with the now-obsolete Adobe Flash. Both include features for playing audio and video within web pages. Flash was specifically built to integrate vector graphics and light games in a web page, features that HTML5 also supports.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Google Swiffy</span> Software tool that converted SWF files to HTML5

Google Swiffy was a web-based tool developed by Google that converted SWF files to HTML5. Its main goal was to display Flash contents on devices that do not support Flash, such as iPhone, iPad, and Android Tablets. Swiffy was shut down July 1, 2016.

mpv (media player) Free and open-source media player software

mpv is free and open-source media player software based on MPlayer, mplayer2 and FFmpeg. It runs on several operating systems, including Unix-like operating systems and Microsoft Windows, along with having an Android port called mpv-android. It is cross-platform, running on ARM, PowerPC, x86/IA-32, x86-64, and MIPS architecture.

CrossBridge is an open-source toolset developed by Adobe Systems, that cross-compiles C and C++ code to run in Adobe Flash Player or Adobe AIR. Projects compiled with CrossBridge run up to 10 times faster than ActionScript 3 projects. CrossBridge was also known as "Alchemy" and the "Flash Runtime C++ Compiler", or "FlasCC".

Media Source Extensions (MSE) is a W3C specification that allows JavaScript to send byte streams to media codecs within Web browsers that support HTML5 video and audio. Among other possible uses, this allows the implementation of client-side prefetching and buffering code for streaming media entirely in JavaScript. It is compatible with, but should not be confused with, the Encrypted Media Extensions (EME) specification, and neither requires the use of the other, although many EME implementations are only capable of decrypting media data provided via MSE.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Shumway (software)</span>

Shumway is a discontinued media player for playing SWF files. It was intended as an open-source replacement for Adobe Flash Player. It is licensed under Apache and SIL Open Font License (OFL). Mozilla started development on it in 2012. It was preceded by a failed earlier project called Gordon, a JavaScript library with a similar concept and name, which interprets SWF files with onboard resources of a browser via SVG conversion. These names are an allusion to Flash Gordon and Gordon Shumway.

Stage3D is an Adobe Flash Player API for rendering interactive 3D graphics with GPU-acceleration, within Flash games and applications. Flash Player or AIR applications written in ActionScript 3 may use Stage3D to render 3D graphics, and such applications run natively on Windows, Mac OS X, Linux, Apple iOS and Google Android. Stage3D is similar in purpose and design to WebGL.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Natron (software)</span> Open source compositing software

Natron is a free and open-source node-based compositing application. It has been influenced by digital compositing software such as Avid Media Illusion, Apple Shake, Blackmagic Fusion, Autodesk Flame and Nuke, from which its user interface and many of its concepts are derived.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ruffle (software)</span> Flash Player emulator

Ruffle is an emulator for Adobe Flash (SWF) files. Ruffle is freely licensed and developed openly on GitHub.

References

  1. 1 2 "Release 0.8.7 · lightspark/Lightspark". GitHub .
  2. "Lightspark flash player continues to advance". Linux.be. 2010-07-09. Archived from the original on 2016-03-13. Retrieved 2010-09-03.
  3. "Lightspark Windows port". launchpad.net. 2011-01-04. Retrieved 2011-02-26.
  4. ""lightspark" 0.4.6-0ubuntu1 source package in The Natty Narwhal". Launchpad.net. 2011-03-15. Retrieved 2011-03-21.
  5. "Email Archive: lightspark-devel". Sourceforge.net. 2010-08-02. Retrieved 2010-09-03.
  6. "Project Lightspark-win32". 2012-10-28.

Further reading