Shumway is a discontinued
media player for playing
SWF
SWF ( ) is an Adobe Flash file format used for multimedia, vector graphics and ActionScript.[Open Screen Pr ...](_blank)
files. It was intended as an
open-source
Open source is source code that is made freely available for possible modification and redistribution. Products include permission to use the source code, design documents, or content of the product. The open-source model is a decentralized sof ...
replacement for
Adobe Flash Player. It is licensed under
Apache and
SIL Open Font License
The SIL Open Font License (or OFL in short) is one of the major open font licenses, which allows embedding, or "bundling", of the font in commercially sold products.
OFL is a free and open source license.
It was created by SIL Internationa ...
(OFL).
Mozilla
Mozilla (stylized as moz://a) is a free software community founded in 1998 by members of Netscape. The Mozilla community uses, develops, spreads and supports Mozilla products, thereby promoting exclusively free software and open standards, w ...
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
Flash Gordon is the protagonist of a space adventure comic strip created and originally drawn by Alex Raymond. First published January 7, 1934, the strip was inspired by, and created to compete with, the already established '' Buck Rogers'' ad ...
and
Gordon Shumway.
Shumway renders Flash contents by translating Flash file contents to
HTML5
HTML5 is a markup language used for structuring and presenting content on the World Wide Web. It is the fifth and final major HTML version that is a World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) recommendation. The current specification is known as the HT ...
elements, and running an
ActionScript
ActionScript is an object-oriented programming language originally developed by Macromedia Inc. (later acquired by Adobe). It is influenced by HyperTalk, the scripting language for HyperCard. It is now an implementation of ECMAScript (meani ...
interpreter in
JavaScript
JavaScript (), often abbreviated as JS, is a programming language that is one of the core technologies of the World Wide Web, alongside HTML and CSS. As of 2022, 98% of Website, websites use JavaScript on the Client (computing), client side ...
. It supports both AVM1 and AVM2, and ActionScript versions 1, 2, and 3.

Development of Shumway has effectively ceased. Although the project remains available on
GitHub
GitHub, Inc. () is an Internet hosting service for software development and version control using Git. It provides the distributed version control of Git plus access control, bug tracking, software feature requests, task management, co ...
(see
External links
An internal link is a type of hyperlink on a web page to another page or resource, such as an image or document, on the same website or domain name, domain.
Hyperlinks are considered either "external" or "internal" depending on their target or ...
), in February 2016, the project was moved to the "Firefox Graveyard" and is thus considered defunct from Mozilla's point of view. Mozilla's strategy in 2016 was to continue to support
Adobe Flash
Adobe Flash (formerly Macromedia Flash and FutureSplash) is a multimedia software platform used for production of animations, rich web applications, desktop applications, mobile apps, mobile games, and embedded web browser video players. Fla ...
, as an exception to its general policy of ceasing support for
NPAPI plugins by the end of 2016.
See also
*
Ruffle
*
Google Swiffy
*
Adobe Wallaby
References
External links
*
*
* – Shumway's landing page
Shumway Wiki – GitHubShumway – MozillaWiki
Adobe Flash
Mozilla
2012 software
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