03-09-2012, 09:36 AM

Can someone tell me how to find a developer to convert our power pc program into an intel version? My original developer is unavailable. The program is called Times Alive and comes in a cd rom flash based program. It has worked on every OS until Lion. Any suggestions how to find someone for this?

03-09-2012, 03:08 PM

If you type "Find a Developer" into a Google search, you will get loads of sites.

Also you should be a little more specific, for example, what programming language is
your app written in, and what development tool was used to make the app, and also do
you have the original source code and project files available.

Regards Mark

03-09-2012, 03:59 PM

Lion does not support Rosetta so no PowerPC applications.

03-09-2012, 04:11 PM

You need to contact the developer:

City Creek Press - Storybooks, music, and software for learning basic math facts with pictures.

03-09-2012, 05:13 PM

Originally Posted by harryb2448

Lion does not support Rosetta so no PowerPC applications.

Hence he is looking for somebody to rewrite the app to be supported in Lion...

03-09-2012, 06:12 PM

Originally Posted by dekan

Hence he is looking for somebody to rewrite the app to be supported in Lion...

rewriting someone else's (closed source) app is, IMO, highly unethical

03-09-2012, 06:46 PM

Originally Posted by TimesAlive

The program is called Times Alive and comes in a cd rom flash based program.

Flash is platform-agnostic - the code is compiled to an intermediary format which works on any platform that has a Flash runtime. You shouldn't have to rewrite anything.

03-11-2012, 06:29 AM

I've seen a lot of adds asking for developers on Craigslist, so you might want to try that for your local area. The next thing up is developer job boards. Sorry, I don't have any to suggest.

Originally Posted by Dysfunction

rewriting someone else's (closed source) app is, IMO, highly unethical

As I understand it, the OP is saying that this is their app. They own it.

Originally Posted by vansmith

Flash is platform-agnostic - the code is compiled to an intermediary format which works on any platform that has a Flash runtime. You shouldn't have to rewrite anything.

I'm not sure that they are saying it is written using Flash. The OP might want to clarify that. If the past programmer is available to discuss the development environment used to develop it, then they should at least get that much information out of them.


Man, the coincidence, I'm scheduled to be in Minneapolis, MN in a week. If that works out, I won't be available for extra work.

03-11-2012, 11:04 AM

Originally Posted by xstep

As I understand it, the OP is saying that this is their app. They own it.

.

Well, that makes a whole bunch more sense. Somehow, I'd missed that in my initial reading. My apologies to the OP

03-11-2012, 12:09 PM

Originally Posted by xstep

I'm not sure that they are saying it is written using Flash. The OP might want to clarify that. If the past programmer is available to discuss the development environment used to develop it, then they should at least get that much information out of them.

That could very well be the case. It could also be a Flash app wrapped in an exe which might explain why the app needs to be "ported." I'm jumping ahead here though.

03-11-2012, 12:45 PM

Originally Posted by vansmith

That could very well be the case. It could also be a Flash app wrapped in an exe which might explain why the app needs to be "ported." I'm jumping ahead here though.

If its in an application runtime, then the only thing you can do is contact the developer. It only needs to be re-exported in a recent version of Flash, but you cannot decompile a projector app, you still need to contact the developer for the original Flash files.

03-11-2012, 12:49 PM

Originally Posted by louishen

If its in an application runtime, then the only thing you can do is contact the developer. It only needs to be re-exported in a recent version of Flash, but you cannot decompile a projector app, you still need to contact the developer for the original Flash files.

Absolutely. I would have imagined however that the developer would have left the source with the client. If that were the case, you wouldn't have to port anything - a simple compile should do the job.

03-12-2012, 02:55 PM

Thanks Vansmith. I have the original source files and yes I own it. What do you mean a simple compile would do it? If it is exported into a more recent version of flash, will it work? The user now gets the error, does not support power pc programs. I am not sure what other language was used. But the user clicks on flash.exe to run the program and it comes packaged with the software. It is an interactive program with animated videos and songs, flash, and writes student files to the user's hard drive. Nothing installs on the computer but it is run off the cd rom drive.

03-12-2012, 03:10 PM

If it is Flash (as in Adobe Flash), the code is platform agnostic. In other words, you don't need to create multiple versions since the code itself will work on any platform that Flash is supported on.

It would appear here that the developer took the Flash content and "wrapped" it in an exe file. They probably did this because Flash doesn't compile to native executables - it gets compiled into its own format (swf). What you need to do is take the source, compile it in Flash (which will create the swf file) and then find a way to get it to run as a binary. I don't know how to do that last step so I'll have to leave that to a more experienced Flash developer. From where I sit, I would just compile to swf, embed it into a webpage and put that on the disc but there may be a more elegant solution. You could also make it an AIR app which has the benefit of being cross-platform (info here). This last solution however requires the AIR runtime to be installed (which I believe can be installed on demand but I'm not positive).

03-12-2012, 03:54 PM

Thanks that is most helpful. It helps me understand the direction to go.