SWX: SWF Data Format

We are working on adding and improving the documentation for SWX 2 (which is currently in Beta 1). Most of this activity is taking place on the SWX project site on Google Code.

Here are links to a couple of the articles on the SWX wiki that will help you get up and running with SWX 2:

• About SWX 2
• Installing SWX
• Getting the latest SVN version
• Using SWX

We have just pushed SWX v2.00 beta live on the project's Google Code page!

Along with this release the public gateway has also been updated to use SWX PHP v2.00 beta and allow for AS3 support. You can find documentation here, which shows how to use the new AS3 API as well as provides an introduction to the new Simple Call and Custom Call methods of interacting with your SWX gateway.

Lastly, Folkert Hielema has contributed an updated Twitter service and a new Identi.ca service. Both of these services are live on the public gateway (you can test them in the Service Explorer) and also available in the SWX PHP download available on the Google Code page under "Featured Downloads".

We will continue to work on updating this blog with new documentation, but until then please refer to this documentation - it should provide you with everything you need to get started with v2.

If you notice any issues, please log them here. For support or to discuss the new release, please use the project's mailing list.

This release has been a huge effort by the SWX development team, and has been in the works since September. I'm sure you'll enjoy using it as much as we've enjoyed coding it.

Can't wait to see what you build!

We've just updated the SWX web site to Wordpress 2.7 (kudos to Matt Mullenweg and the team at Automattic for doing an amazing job on this, as always). We're also running on a new theme, the excellent Grid Focus by Derek Punsalan.

As you can see, there's quite a bit of activity around SWX and you'll soon find out exactly why — keep your eyes on the RSS feed or check back for updates. Suffice to say that the SWX team, led by Jon, has made amazing progress.

Exciting times!

If you have been using the Flash Player 10 RC and came across a site or widget using SWX, you undoubtedly noticed that it wasn't working. After a couple of days of back-and-forth on the SWX mailing list, the issue has been found and a solution posted.

[Update September 5, 2008 - a different fix was suggested in an attempt to allow SWX to continue to be used by hitting the gateway directly, allowing for easier debugging. Code below reflects this update.]

The problem is that FP 10 does not like one of the headers returned from SWX. To fix the issue, open SwxAssembler.php and change line 538 from:

header('Content-Disposition: attachment; filename="data.swf"');

to:

header('Content-Disposition: inline; filename="data.swf"');

This seems to fix the issue, as all SWX sites this has been tested on now work in FP 10 again.

Thanks to Fabrício Kolling for finding the proper solution, and to Folkert Hielema and Ben Lagoutte for helping test broken sites and debug the issue.

While this issue has not yet been fixed in the project's SVN or downloads, we hope to make this addition soon and release an updated version with the last couple of minor fixes.

Even though it has been a few months since there was an update to the SWX blog, the community continues to thrive. While Aral is extremely busy putting together the Singularity conference, he was kind enough to provide me with access to post an update with some recent developments in regards to SWX.

Over on the SWX Mailing List there has been lots of discussion around small bug fixes (which you can download here), creating solutions for using SWX with AS3 projects until an official update is developed (more on this below), and general debugging and problem solving. If you are not a member of the list, it is highly suggested that you join, as this is where most of the community discussion is happening at the moment.

It should be noted that SWX was recently featured in a new Friends of Ed release entitled "The Essential Guide to Open Source Flash Development". The chapter focuses on providing real-world examples of how to get started with SWX, and how to use it in real-life web and mobile projects. Other chapters include PaperVision3D, Red5, Fuse/Go, and more. Buy your copy today and support open source Flash!

Lastly, this merits its own post, but I am starting an initiative to form a development team for an AS3 version of SWX. If you are interested in helping out with writing the necessary byte code, have started something similar on your own, or would like to help out in some other way, please post to the SWX mailing list. Look for a post on this in the very near future.

Wade Arnold has an important post on the upcoming Flash Player update and the security changes that will break AMFPHP. As SWX-PHP uses AMF-PHP as a library, it too will be affected.

Wade's post has a crossdomain.xml file that you can use on your existing sites to make sure that they don't break.

Thanks to R. Jon MacDonald for bringing this to my attention on the SWX mailing list.

Well, it's Christmas Eve and we have our winners for the SWX Contest. Before announcing them, I want to thank all of our contestants for submitting entries. We had over 20 entries in total.

Also, a big thank-you to our judges -- Keith Peters, Carlos Ulloa, John Grden, Scott Janousek, Alessandro Pace, Richard Leggett, Jed Hurt, Folkert Hielema, and Wouter Verweirder -- for taking time out of their busy schedules to review and provide such detailed feedback on each of entries.

Finally, many thanks to our sponsors for the prizes: Adobe, Lynda.com, Buraks.com, Friends of ED, and yours truly.

So, without further ado, here are our winners.

In the Web category, there was some fierce competition in the top three but Gal to Gal Walk by R. Jon MacDonald inched its was to first place with Toni's Bauernsuche by Muevo and Moodley in at a close second and Extraordinary Careers by Adam Boyle taking third place. Congratulations, Jon!

We also had some great entries in the APIs category but the clear winner was SWXml by Florian Plag.

SWXml is a generic XML parser for SWX that provides Flash developers with a very easy way to create applications that consume popular XML format (e.g. RSS Feeds, Atom, Media RSS, etc.). SWXml parses an XML file and returns an native ActionScript array.

As one of our judges commented: "I think that the clear winner is SWXml; it's a great idea and it's by far the best documented of all the entries. I'd say that of all the entries, SWXml has the greatest chance of drawing new users to SWX."

The SWX Backpack Service by Mike Stead was a close second in the APIs category and was praised by our judges for its completeness and attention to detail. The SubmitVerisignPayment SWX API by R. Jon MacDonald came in third.

Finally, the winner in our mobile category was another entry by Florian Plag, miniRSS, a mobile RSS reader. Tweeter by Aran Rhee took second place and SWX Blogger by Peter Elst came in third. Congratulations, Florian!

And just to remind everyone what prizes Jon and Florian have won: They will be receiving a copy of Adobe Web Suite Premium, Lynda.com 1 Year Premium Subscription, Nabaztag/tag bunny, iPod Touch, A copy of ActionScript Viewer (ASV) and books from Friends of ED.

(And something tells me Florian is going to be a very happy bunny as he'll be receiving two sets of prizes for winning in two categories!)

I am going to be forwarding the winners details to our sponsors so they can ship out the prizes and will be contacting the winners personally to make arrangements for getting them the Nabaztag/Tag bunnies and iPod touches that I'm contributing.

Congratulations again to our winners and thank you to everyone who took part in the contest.

Happy Holidays!

The Code Zone by John Hattan is the mobile version of John's iniature game-portal site, The Code Zone.

The Code Zone (web edition) is a separate entry in the SWX Contest under the Web category.

Here's what John says about his entry:

My mobile site is one of the chief reasons I went with SWX for the communications layer rather than remoting. Since the games are all compiled for Flash 7 and SWX, getting 'em to run in Flash Lite was basically "free". It was largely a matter of putting together some light Javascript-free PHP that'll intelligently size the games for the screen.

The Code Zone by John Hattan is a miniature game-portal of sorts.

Here's what John says about his entry:

The site centers around my Daily Puzzles, which are a set of (currently twelve) puzzle games. The puzzles change once a day, and users can log in to play if they want to rank themselves against other players. After solving a puzzle, you're invited to return the next day to see how well you fared against the rest of the players. You also have the option of emailed high score tables, RSS feeds of scores, and daily posts of your rankings to Twitter.

I use SWX to handle user management, login/logout, submitting scores, trophies (hidden awards for in-game accomplishments) and the "statisticalyzer" app that users can use to view their scores and awards.

Thus-far I've found SWX to be easier, lighter, and more reliable than remoting -- my communications failures have dropped to almost zero. Future plans include SWX-based daily rankings widgets for the various widget-platforms as well as Chumby.

Visit the site.

Photo Gallery Viewer by Julio Rodriguez is an online tool for viewing web Photo Galleries from Flickr or Picasa (Web Albums).

The photos are presented in a unified and easy to use interface. Its built using the Flickr API that comes with SWX, and SWXml to incorporate data from the Picasa API.

View the site.