How to force ANEs unpackaging for release build?

[Adolio]

Hello,

I'm trying to enforce the unpackaging of ANEs in release builds (for ADL testing).

I found this option:

vscode-as3mxml/asconfigc/src/main/java/com/as3mxml/asconfigc/ASConfigCOptions.java

Line 34 in 62b8313

private static final String OPTION_UNPACKAGE_ANES = "unpackage-anes";

but didn't figure out how to use it (I guess it's maybe an extra argument to add in tasks.json). Copilot cannot figure it out either 😅

---

Can someone help me a bit on this?

Thanks in advance,
Aurélien

[joshtynjala]

ANEs are unpackaged by vscode-as3mxml for debug builds only. There is no option to enable unpackaging ANEs for release builds.

I found this option: unpackage-anes

This is an option on the asconfigc tool, which is the tool used to build a project based on the options in asconfig.json. By default, asconfigc doesn't unpackage ANEs, and this option asks it to. The option works only for debug builds, though. It will be ignored for release builds.

[Adolio]

Thanks Josh for your reply.

I'm wondering if this is a missing feature, a limitation or it is actually intended by design?

On my side, I commonly compile in release to test with ADL because my project just cannot run smoothly in debug. So right now I get the following error when trying to do a clean release build:

Error launching SWF debug session. Process exited with code: 5

Process terminated unexpectedly.

Error: Requested extension XXX could not be found.
The content cannot be loaded because there was a problem loading an extension: Error: Requested extension XXX could not be found.

In case you can't or don't want to add this in vscode-as3mxml, do you think that unpacking it in .as3mxml-unpackaged-anes via an external script during the build task could work?

[joshtynjala]

It was intended by design. However, in all my years of working on AIR apps, I've never worked on one that cannot run smoothly in debug. I've heard that debug builds can be a bit slower, but the slowdown has always seemed insignificant or undetectable in my experience.

In most cases, release builds should not unpackage ANEs, so I'm not sure the best way to make it an option.

do you think that unpacking it in .as3mxml-unpackaged-anes via an external script during the build task could work?

Yes, I think that would work. If vscode-swf-debug doesn't detect the .as3mxml-unpackaged-anes directory automatically, you can specify the directory in the extdir field of your launch.json configuration. Or, if you are running ADL manually, there is probably an ADL command line option to specify where to find unpackaged ANEs.

[Adolio]

Ho, that's quite surprising to me to see that you were never significantly affected by the performance hit in debug. On my side, my game is running at 20-30 fps in debug and 60+ fps in release. High frame rate drastically improves the experience in my case (2D precision platformer game). I remember having seen something in The Starling Manual about it. Here it is actually: https://manual.starling-framework.org/en/#_always_make_a_release_build

Regarding the ANE, I managed to make it work by unpacking it through my Python stack as follow (for anyone else interested):

In .vscode/launch.json:

{
	"type": "swf",
	"request": "launch",
	"name": "AIR Steam: Build release & launch",
	"profile": "extendedDesktop",
	"preLaunchTask": "Build Steam release",
	"extdir": "bin/desktop/.as3mxml-unpackaged-anes",
	"program": "bin/desktop/application-desktop.xml",
	"runtimeExecutable": "${config:as3mxml.sdk.framework}/bin/adl64.exe"
},

In .vscode/tasks.json:

{
	"label": "Build Steam release",
	"dependsOn": [
		"Desktop prebuild",
		"ActionScript: compile release - asconfig.windows.steam.json"
	],
	"dependsOrder": "sequence"
},
{
	"label": "Desktop prebuild",
	"type": "shell",
	"command": "python",
	"args": [
		"scripts/desktop_prebuild.py"
	]
},

In scripts/desktop_prebuild.py:

import configuration
import zipfile

# Unpack ANEs
# This is required mostly for release to unpack ANEs
print("Unpacking ANEs...")
with zipfile.ZipFile("ane/FRESteamWorks.ane", 'r') as zip_ref:
	zip_ref.extractall(configuration.BIN_PATH_DESKTOP + "/.as3mxml-unpackaged-anes/FRESteamWorks.ane")
	print("ANEs unpacked.")

This is working great, thanks! 🤗

I still think that having an option to force unpacking in release would be great but now that I have this solution I'm fine with it. Thanks again!!