I combined FFMPEG.js, a tool compiled with asm.js for video editing in web apps, with Comlink, a library that simplifies web worker interactions. This integration, along with my experiment of exporting FFMPEG to Web Assembly, allows for cleaner video encoding off the main thread. The provided code snippets demonstrate the simplicity of using Comlink to expose the ffmpeg interface within a web worker and then access it from the main thread as a proxy, offering a neat solution for asynchronous video processing.
Emscripten is a great tool for compiling to WebAssembly, but it can introduce unnecessary overhead. It's important to minimize the runtime size for any language compiled to WebAssembly. This post explores how to use Emscripten with a minimal runtime, avoiding excessive magic and focusing on efficiency.
This blog post explores the potential of WebAssembly (Wasm) for full-stack development, allowing code sharing between client and server. I discuss how Wasm could enable progressive enhancement for web APIs like the Shape Detection API. Using this API as an example, I illustrate how a C-binding library like OpenCV, compiled to Wasm, could be used on both client and server to provide consistent functionality regardless of native browser support. This approach involves creating a wrapper around OpenCV and the target web API to bridge the gap between them. I express my excitement about Wasm's potential to simplify deployment and maintenance by enabling the use of a single binary across different environments.
Building ffmpeg.js, a tool I used in my project Device Frame, can be tricky if you need custom filters and encoders. This post details the steps I took to successfully build it on Ubuntu, including installing dependencies, cloning the repo, setting up Emscripten, and running the build. I also included solutions to some common errors encountered during the process.
This post explores the concept of "reverse polyfilling" – creating polyfills for features removed from web browsers. I argue that as the web platform matures, pruning less-used features is necessary for performance and maintainability. While this might seem disruptive to developers, reverse polyfills, combined with the principles of the Extensible Web, offer a solution. By focusing on core primitives and building higher-level features with JavaScript (potentially leveraging technologies like WebAssembly), we can create a more adaptable and efficient web platform. Reverse polyfills will become essential for both removing legacy features and implementing new ones, contributing to a progressively enhanced web experience.
