Introduction
Gnash is a GNU Flash movie player. Flash is an animation file format pioneered by Macromedia which continues to be supported by their successor company, Adobe. Flash has been extended to include audio and video content, and programs written in ActionScript, an ECMAScript-compatible language. Gnash is based on GameSWF, and supports most SWF v7 features and some SWF v8 and v9.
The main developer's web site for Gnash is located on the Free Software Foundation's Savannah project support server. This site allows you to file bugs, or view the sources via the web.
Features
- Runs standalone
- Gnash can run standalone to play flash movies.
- Browser plugin
- Gnash can also run as a plugin from within most Mozilla derived browsers, such as Firefox. Gnash also has support for Konqueror.
- SWF v7+ compliant
- Gnash can play many current flash movies.
- Streaming Video
- Gnash supports the viewing of streaming video from popular video sharing sites like Lulu.tv or YouTube.com.
- XML Message server
- Gnash also supports an XML based message system as documented in the Flash Format specification.
- High Quality Output
- Gnash uses OpenGL for rendering the graphics on the desktop, and AntiGrain (AGG) for embedded framebuffer only devices.
- Free Software
- Gnash is 100% free software. For more information on the GPL, go to the Free Software Foundation web site.
- Better Security
- Gnash pays extra attention to all network connections, and allows the user to control access.
- Extensible
- Gnash supports extending ActionScript by creating your own. You can write wrappers for any development library, and import them into the player.
Get the Software
Status
Gnash is being actively developed at the moment. Therefore, although many features work, not all movies play successfully. The fourth beta release of Gnash has was made at version 0.8.5 on March 3, 2009.
Downloading Gnash
Gnash source releases (HTTP, FTP) can be found in the subdirectory /pub/gnu/gnash on your favourite GNU mirror.
Win32 users can now download an executable based on the 0.8.2 release, which is now seriously out of date, and won't work with YouTube.
You can get binary snapshots at http://www.getgnash.org/packages/snapshots" and http://www.getgnash.org/builds/ built nightly by our automated build system.
Bazaar Access to Sources
The latest Gnash sources are also available via anonymous access. You will need the Bazaar program (usually contained in a package called "bzr").
bzr branch http://bzr.savannah.gnu.org/r/gnash/trunk
For more detailed information on bzr usage at gnu.org, read bzr Usage at gnu.org (but note that we use a different layout). You can also browse the sources.
If you cannot use ssh because you only have access to the Internet through a proxy, you can still get the latest version from a directory of daily snapshots on the web.
For other ways to obtain Gnash, please read this page. General information on obtaining GNU software is also available.
Documentation
The manual describing the most recent release (0.8.4) is available in a variety of formats.
- User Manual (HTML)
- Reference Manual (HTML)
- User Manual (GNU Info)
- Reference Manual (GNU Info)
- Gnash Man Page(nroff)
- Gprocessor Man Page(nroff)
- Dumpshm Man Page(nroff)
- Soldumper Man Page(nroff)
Alternately, you may build the documentation from your checkout. Please refer to the instructions in the current manual for instructions on how to do this.
You can also view Doxygen produced documentation that is automatically generated by scanning the sources. This is aimed at developers, but can be useful to others as well.
Mailing Lists/Newsgroups
Gnash has three mailing lists hosted at gnu.org. Archives of these lists are stored at http://lists.gnu.org/pipermail/:
- gnash-dev@gnu.org is for discussion of gnash development, porting to new platforms, and ideas for the future. This is the best list for technical questions.
This list has moderate volume. To subscribe, go to http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/gnash-dev.
- gnash@gnu.org is for discussion of Gnash. This list addresses ideas for the future, general gnash usage or problems, and so on. New alpha and stable releases are announced here.
This list typically has a low volume. To subscribe, go to http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/gnash.
- gnash-commit@gnu.org is where summaries of changes committed to the source repository are automatically posted.
This list has a fairly high volume. If you wish to see these changes as they happen, subscribe at http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/gnash-commit.
- #gnash on irc.freenode.net
The #gnash channel on irc.freenode.net is where many of the developers hang out.
Announcements about Gnash and most other GNU Software are made on
Request an Enhancement
If you would like any new feature to be included in future versions of Gnash, please send a request to
Report a Bug
If you think you have found a bug in Gnash, then you should send as complete a report as possible at https://savannah.gnu.org/bugs/?group=gnash. When filing a bug report, please include information on which operating system and which cpu you are experiencing this problem on. Often it is likely the bug you have noticed has already been filed, please review existing bug reports before submitting a new one.
Maintainer
Gnash is currently being maintained by Rob Savoye. Other members of the current development team are Sandro Santilli, Bastiaan Jacques, Zou Lunkai, Benjamin Wolsey, Russell Nelson, Markus Gothe, plus a host of others.
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