SmartFoxServer 2X Announced!

Post by **Lapo** » 03 May 2010, 09:16

Hello,
the forthcoming SmartFoxServer major release was announced today.
The new product is called SmartFoxServer 2X and it represents the next generation of the platform. It will provide a massive evolution of the architecture, protocol and framework and it will be loaded with new features.

To learn more and read about all the details please follow this link:
http://www.smartfoxserver.com/2X/

Enjoy!

Sappho · Post by **Sappho** » 03 May 2010, 18:35

Great news indeed Lapo, can i ask you a question? The date is 2nd half of 2010 i suppose this is for the final but what about the public beta? Is there a more specified release schedule. I am asking because you caught us by surprise we are working on a major refactoring of one of our SFS games and i will probably push it now to wait for X2, or atleast the SFS part of it.

I simply can't wait to get my hands on the beta, this is better than christmas, thanks

Post by **Lapo** » 03 May 2010, 19:04

Hi,
that's the million dollar/euros/you-name-it question

The amount of work behind this new release is massive and we're now spending most of our time in testing which is the most demanding (and at times boring) part of the job. Additionally there's a lot of documentation to write.
Predicting exactly how long these activities will take (testing especially) would require a cluster of crystal balls

And even with those we wouldn't be able to be totally precise.

The good news is that as we proceed with the work we'll keep posting updates and provide better time-frames if possible.

So my best answer here is... stay tuned for more news

BigFIsh · Post by **BigFIsh** » 03 May 2010, 19:36

Wow, I have just read the details - it looks very very promising! Great job team SmartFoxServer! I'm glad I have chosen this product out of all other ones

orthiac · Post by **orthiac** » 04 May 2010, 09:48

Great news. Can hardly wait for release.

I think that you people at SFS have done a great job of maintaining the current platform while continuing to look toward the future of interactive services.

With the new SFS2X, has there been any consideration to backwards compatibility for current Java extensions?

- Mike

Post by **Lapo** » 04 May 2010, 10:29

Thanks Mike.
Porting your previous java code will not be a huge pain. The new framework is simply a lot more convenient to use, streamlined and it's up to date to the latest Java 6 features: generics, annotations, enums, concurrency etc...

If you have already organized your code in a good OOP fashion it won't be much of a pain. Most of the work will be in substituting the calls (say createRoom, joinRoom) to the old framework with the new ones.

We have ported the old SFSTris extension to the new fwork and it has lost weight

The code is cleaner, shorter and well organized.

Stay tuned for the next updates, we'll publish more preview docs before launching the beta.

09op · Post by **09op** » 05 May 2010, 09:42

are you guys working on multiple admin's?
also please get the wireless connections host

Post by **Lapo** » 05 May 2010, 09:58

The new Config/Admin Tool will allow multiple Admins to login at the same time. As regards wireless connections this is not a special feature. A wireless connection is just a TCP connection as any other only it happens via a different piece of hardware (wireless network card)

If your harware and OS supports wireless then wireless is supported out of the box. This applies to the current edition of SmartFox, the next one and any other newtworked application you can think of.

xLite · Post by **xLite** » 06 May 2010, 03:39

This is great, just please spend a fair amount of time on the documentation explaining each function. It's a real time waster and great pain having to guess what a function does when there is nothing to describe what it does in the documentation. This doesn't really apply to the AS3 client api as much as the Javadoc.

Can't wait

Post by **Lapo** » 06 May 2010, 08:36

xLite
In the current SFS version most of the effort for the server side part was concentrated on Actionscript. SFS2X will be solely focused on the Java framework. The documentation system will be largely improved

09op · Post by **09op** » 06 May 2010, 09:34

could the wirelesss problem be my router or my laptop wifi? (my manufactory is HP)

xLite · Post by **xLite** » 06 May 2010, 09:35

Lapo wrote:xLite
In the current SFS version most of the effort for the server side part was concentrated on Actionscript. SFS2X will be solely focused on the Java framework. The documentation system will be largely improved

Well then I honestly can't wait. Keep up the good work!

IKA · Post by **IKA** » 09 May 2010, 14:43

Lapo,

what is going to happen to the SFS 1.x actual customers?

We have been working the past 3 years on a project which is delievered and actually under heavy commercial and games improovements. I was hoping that your announcement about "tons of bandwight saving" in one of yout previous posts would have been something usable in our project.

I thing that creating a new SFS, which in facts cuts us out of the game because we have built up an AS2 Project and because you declare as dedicated to "new projects", is not something your actual customers could be happy about.

Unless i have porely understood your SFS2x Explaination, our 1.6 SFS version is in fact destined to be frozen (or isn't it?)

It's definitely not for the money, but a lot about years of work with no further chanches of tecnichal upgrade.

Hope in a hopefull reply,

cheers.

Post by **Lapo** » 10 May 2010, 07:34

Hello IKA.
SmartFoxServer 2X is a new product in the sense that it's not based on its predecessor from a code-base perspective, but it's definitely a continuation of the SmartFoxServer approach to multiplayer gaming. We didn't overturn the philosophy of the product, in fact we extended and improved it into new directions.

If you are familiar with SmartFox you will find yourself at home with 2X. The general concepts are still there, only they have been simplified where appropriate, streamlined and extended.
In other words you'll be able to do more, more rapidly and easily.

Unless i have porely understood your SFS2x Explaination, our 1.6 SFS version is in fact destined to be frozen (or isn't it?)

We have no plans to freeze it. We will keep maintaining the 1.x version as we have always done.

Moving an existing SFS 1.x project to SFS2X is absolutely possible: on the client side the API are very similar so it's a minor work. On the server side you will have to port your code to Java if it's not written in that language already.

In closing I would like you to consider that SmartFoxServer has been going on for the last 5 years with relentless updates which has made the platform grow and expand to what it is today.

5 years in this field are almost an "era" due to the speed at which innovation moves in the IT sector. During those times we have seen monolithic web pages moving to Ajax, Actionscript 2 evolving into version 3, Flash based RIAs move to Flex and lots more.

All these passages have introduced remarkable improvements in their respective fields but they also had to break with the past, to a certain extent, in order to be free to provide that level of innovation.

I think it's inevitable. As regards SFS2X we have invested quite a lot into maintaining a balance between preserving the previous "philosophy" and breaking with the past where needed.

IKA · Post by **IKA** » 10 May 2010, 21:45

Dear Lapo,

thanks for quick reply.

Our server side application is java, but client is AS2 based, and porting is definitely not so easy.
Is AS2 api currently in development in SFS2x?

And also, will You continue to produce new features and developements for SFS 1.x (including bandwith optimization ?)

SmartFoxServer 2X Announced!

SmartFoxServer 2X Announced!

Fantastic!