Is developement alive? Anyone forking?

#1

This seems to be an old question by now, but not one where I have found recent and clear answers.

For context, I just recently found the wick editor and was very positivly surprised by it all.
As I kind of miss Flash (but not Adobe), so a open source Flash would be awesome and the wick editor seems halfway there.

But after playing with it a bit, it just isn’t advanced enough for serious use and developement seems dead, likely because of lack of funding (or technical problems?). A shame.

It is what it is.

But I am thinking of forking it, as I likely do have the skillset and know the relevant browser technologies bottom to top.

But it would be quite stupid, if I would start forking it - and then suddenly the secret developement of the next version is done and it gets released, voiding my time investment, of fixing bugs that have been fixed already.
I really doubt it, though and the lack of clear communication around it, is a bit dissapointing.

So … has anyone any news, that I missed?

1 Like
#2

I’m pretty sure nothing is under development at present.
At least no one ever mentioned it.
Wickeditor project is now under the shield of Carnagie Mellon University but apparently they did nothing with it or at least they never disclosed their progress.
It would be awesome if you could improve wickeditor. I had huge expectations and really hope this is not the end for a great project

#3

Well, the Github repo says the last commit was 2 years ago. So obviously nothing there.

I will probably give it a shot, to at least fix some simple pain points for me.
Like exporting a mp4 with alpha background.
Or make the whole workflow faster, when doing interactive HTML developement, right now it is many clicks for every small change.

Bigger problems, like having a base MovieClip, that will update all instances when edited, are probably harder, as I would have to fully dive into the codebase for this.

My own main project is actually a full powered web IDE - if I could integrate that into the wick editor, then there would be nice things, like using wick editor as an integrated UI editor. But there are many, many potential problems I will probably run into, so of course, I will promise nothing. I see how it goes.

Oh btw. building the wick editor in its current shape from source will fail - you have to use old node 14 version.

#4

from my understanding, the original creators have moved on and have donated wick to Carnegie Mellon University, and they will continue development. the Patreon money is partially used to keep the site running, and part of it is being stowed away for the future (when the “future” is, i have no idea). i had hoped that there would be some new stuff when school started, but we’re halfway through the school year and still nothing.

i would assume that forking should be fine, considering we haven’t gotten any news from CMU for a long time other than that they own wick now.

#5

I mean, it is under the free GPL licence anyway. If I really put serious work into a fork, I just would have to use a new name as “wick editor” is probably trademarked (and I do not really like that name to be honest).

It definitely means, they are not doing any open developement, but I would not rule it out, that the students work has to be finished by the end of the semester. Or, that they contiue developement closed source and just release finished builds at some point? Normally I think the GPL does not make this possible, but if the creators give permission, then they can just change the licence for future work.
But not for the current source there is (I think and hope).

1 Like
#6

I think you are right
GPL licence should allow you to fork and develop and as far as I know wickeditor is not a trademark.
@Luxapodular maybe Luca could give more informations

Following the very few informations from Carnagie I guess there is no development at all at present

#7

Carnegie Mellon University is currently in charge of development.

It has been a long time since we’ve had any major updates. I know that @etcanthony mentioned that they’re planning to use the patreon money to keep the site running, and with the rest, they’re going to pay a small team of developers to work on the editor. Idk if they have the team set up yet, or if they’re still figuring things out, but if they’re still figuring things out, I believe your contribution could be very beneficial to the development of the editor, especially since it seems that you have a good set of experience with this.

@etcanthony might be able to give more information regarding this topic.

#8

it would be really cool if you make it do notify my if you are making progress cause i am one of the people who never got to use flash for a long time like i got to know about it in 2020 august and it died on december :(