On Forking Syncydink #85
Description
As of 2020/11/28, Syncydink is no longer being updated.
Syncydink was written in 2017/2018, at a time where there wasn't many options for video sync playback. It was basically Syncydink and ScriptPlayer (https://github.com/FredTungsten/ScriptPlayer). Since then, multiple new communities, applications, and services have popped up, as well as some toy manufacturers creating their own playback mechanisms. Rather than try to compete with these other entities, I've decided to step back and concentrate on toy support and games, which get far less interest than video sync. While Syncydink is still a widely used product, I also have no real interest in video sync as a user, so I don't have much motivation to try to continue upkeep with all of the other projects I have going.
This doesn't mean I won't revisit video sync in the future, but it's looking like that'll be months in the future at minimum if I ever do, and I don't want to keep putting users off with the expectation this will be worked on again.
If you're interested in forking this codebase and making your own version of the project, here's a few things that will need to happen.
- Update to Buttplug WASM, as buttplug-js is now unmaintained - https://github.com/buttplug/buttplug-rs-ffi
- This is not easy at the moment, due to incompatibilities in wasm-pack, vue, webpack, and vuetify. None of these packages like each other. Hoping this situation will be better in a few months.
- Update dependencies
- Almost all of the dependencies here are 2+ years old, and some conflict with each other.
- Implement another app for a local HTTP server for serving to VR headsets
- Syncydink is popular with people on mobile and VR platforms. However, there is currently no way to stream to those platforms easily. It would greatly benefit from having a local http server to serve movie/haptics files from, so that people could use their platforms over local networks (like wifi)
- Maybe split up the app
- One of the major reasons Syncydink is being retired is that it does way too much. It was trying to be a 2D player, a VR player, and a video encoder, all in one. This created a ton of complexity that would make it a full time project to maintain. Separating these into different applications would probably be a very good idea, and the best way to do that may be starting from the ground up versus trying to retrofit Syncydink.
- Other features people have asked for
- Playlists, Audio file syncing, more controls in VR... Also just check the issue list here.
If you decide to fork and maintain the project yourself, please leave an issue over on https://github.com/buttplugio/awesome-buttplug and I'll add your fork to our applications list there. I'll also update this post so people can find alternatives and places to contribute.