especially @singmajesty
OpenFL 3 is “set” to stable with the new 3.0.1 (no alpha or beta tags). This is great!
I’m happy this big effort is put to go Next and have a better OpenFL, thanks a lot for that.
But here I have to talk about the downside of this transition.
My haxelib
lime: 2.2.2 2.3.0 [2.3.1]
openfl: 2.2.8 [3.0.1]
Minors
A lot of stuff changed, and some API as well. This is normal and it is not a big deal since I can see the errors, check the API docs or even the source very easily. Annoying but necessary.
TextField
Issue #583
Still having issues with Text. For example alignment problems if different from LEFT, but there are many other. I suppose the TextField is an hard matter.
Matrix
Issue #555
The Matrix transformations (displayObject.transform
) are not working as expected.
The skew is not applied at all.
Slowness
If just a simple app with just a Main.hx there are no difference. But I am experiencing lots of problems with more complicated environments that loads stuff at the boot.
The app freeze a takes long time to start (5s) when it is no more than 1sec on Legacy.
After that trying to animate the translation (with Actuate) on sprites is quite slow (when fluid on Legacy).
Scaling sprites
The quality of the scaling in Legacy was not amazing actually. Quite sharp also with smoothness to true. Flash handle that beautifully, OpenFL on other targets not so much. I’ve avoided the problem using multi-res graphic assets (also to optimise memory consumption)
In the new Next the scaling are quite blurry instead. Actually too blurry. Have you change the renderer? I suppose is OpenGL 100% now. Are you applying any filter or shader when a bitmap is scaled with smoothness=True?
Hybrid
This new hybrid compile is great. It should help a lot when people rely on some old library.
I suppose that both Next and Legacy will be compiled and the payload of your app will increase. Am I right?
Conclusion
Are you experiencing problems as well with the new OpenFL or am I not following a good practice to handle this transition?
Is it OpenFL 3.0.x ready for production? I feel like not so much.
I was thinking about new developers: could they be keep away from embracing OpenFL trying the new 3.0 and experiencing problems without knowing the previous stable environment?
PS: This post is not intended as a complain but rather as some thoughts and highlights of current problems to open a discussion and understand better the project current status.
I really appreciate all the work around OpenFL and his great community