Category Archive for ‘Documentation’ at SWX: SWF Data Format

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Archive for the 'Documentation' Category

Release Notes for SWX PHP 1.0

Published

aral

on September 11, 2007

in Documentation, Releases and SWX PHP

. 1 Comment

SWX PHP start page: You will now receive a warning if you're running an unsupported (older) version of PHP (e.g. 4.3.x)
SWX PHP Start Page: Added friendly views for services folder and examples folder directory listings.
SWX PHP Start Page: Services folder and flash examples folder now display the operating system path to the folders.
SWX PHP: Added LOG_ALL configuration variable that determines whether non-error (status, info, profiling) messages should be written to the PHP error log. Set this to false on deployments for better performance. Useful during development. Defaults to true.
Nabaztag API: Updated with new methods to move ears and to send choreographies. The talk method now takes an optional voice argument that can change the voice that the rabbit talks in.
SWX Service Explorer and SWX Data Analyzer: Documentation links now lead to their own subpages on swxformat.org.
SWX PHP Start Page: The data type tests bar now resizes correctly even after the tests are complete.
SWX PHP Start Page: Replaced existing placeholder OS X icons with royalty-free ones.
Updated all visual elements to reflect the 1.0 version number (we're out of Beta, woohoo!)

Release notes for SWX PHP RC1

Published

aral

on September 2, 2007

in Documentation, Releases and SWX PHP

. 0 Comments

SWX RPC: MAY BREAK EXISTING APPS, read these instructions for updating your applications to SWX PHP RC1! Root data type can be any supported data type (bool, int, float, string, associative array/object, array)
SWX PHP: Flash 6 support. SWX PHP created SWX files work with Flash 6+.
SWX PHP: E_NOTICE errors are no longer returned to Flash but ignored. (Thanks to Alex Tur for reporting this.)
SWX PHP: Start page simplified with links to swxformat.org and online documentation.
SWX PHP: Added SWX RPC data type tests to the start page.
SWX PHP: The SWX RPC data type tests on the start page now automatically detect the gateway URL and display the gateway URL on successful completion.
SWX ActionScript Library: Changed event constant values to lowercase on ExternalAsset class.
SWX ActionScript Library: LoadManager broadcasts PROGRESS events when a new item in the queue starts to load.
SWX ActionScript Library: Updated to compile under Flash 6.
Flickr API: Implemented the full official Flickr API.
Flickr API: getUserPhotos() no longer makes unnecessary API call to urls_getUserPhotos. Uses the NSID instead.
Flickr API: getUserPhotos() renamed to swxGetUserPhotos(). All SWX Flickr API extensions now start with "swx" to separate them from the official Flickr API methods.
Flickr API: Added file upload script.
Flickr API: swxGetUserPhotos and swxPhotosGetRecent now return info on total number of pages.
Twitter API: addFriends() returns correct response code. Patch courtesy of Folkert.
Twitter API: Updated all methods to the latest official Twitter API.
Twitter API: Deprecated addFriend, removeFriend in favor of new friendship methods in official Twitter API.
Twitter API: Added getFans() alias for followersWhoAreNotFriends() method.
Twitter API: Updated leaveFriend() and followFriend() methods. They now return the correct status with the latest Twitter screens.
Twitter API: Added notifications() method for turning notifications for a friend on or off.
Data Analyzer: Details and history panel widths now grow when horizontal divider is moved.
Data Analyzer: Added web site links for documentation, etc.
Data Analyzer: Now displays all supported root data types correctly.
Data Analyzer: Resumes following data streams after the history is cleared even if user was viewing historic data previously.
Data analyzer: The open/close tree controls are now enabled/disabled according to the root data type.
Service Explorer: The method tree now has focus by default and the method dropdown does not lose focus on selection. Keyboard navigation of app should be much easier.
Service Explorer: The methods drop-down no longer scrolls up with the parameters.
Service Explorer: Added web site links for documentation, etc.
Sample applications: Updated simple_flickr.fla to use the new Flickr API methods.
Sample applications: Updated all sample applications to RC1 and tested.
Sample applications: All sample applications now use the public SWX gateway by default to ensure that they work regardless of whether there is a properly configured local SWX PHP instance.
Sample applications: Added miniflickr Flash Lite application.
MiniFlickr: Users can no longer go to a non-existing page.
MiniFlickr: Existing thumbnail overlay from previous screen does not display on new screens.
MiniFlickr: Focusrect is now correctly aligned.
MiniFlickr: Pages are correctly centered horizontally.
MiniFlickr: Controls display properly on details screen.
MiniFlickr: Main page load indicator now displays while quickly scrolling pages.

Release notes for SWX PHP Beta 1.3 and earlier

Published

aral

on September 2, 2007

in Documentation and SWX PHP

. 1 Comment

Beta 1.3 (released July 18, 2007)

SWX gateway: Errors are now returned as Objects with error (boolean), errorNumber, and errorNumber properties.
SWX Full API: Added fault handler support. You add a fault handler just like result, progress, and timeout handlers. e.g., fault: [this, faultHandler] in the call parameters object you pass the swx call() method.
BaseService no longer shows up in the methods drop-down in Explorer for any of the APIs.
Added checks for safe mode and open basedir (CURL followlocation will fail in both these situations), and mod_security (cross-domain data access fails with default ruleset) that alert user potential problems instead of failing silently .
PHP 5: Fixed strict mode errors causing calls to fail (e.g. Flickr.getUserPhotos).
MAMP Bundle: Now defaults to the correct default directory on start up.
Flash examples: Saved all files in Flash 8 format.
Flash examples: Added .. to the classpath of all example FLAs so they compile out of the box.
Flash examples: Set mobile examples to FL 2.0 not 2.1 to be F8 compatible.
Flash examples: Removed old example files.

Beta 1.2.2 (released July 9, 2007)

Very minor point release: The SWX image on the start page was missing from previous Beta 1.2.x releases. If your aesthetic sensibilities can live with that, you don't need to upgrade from 1.2.1!

Beta 1.2.1 (released July 9, 2007)

(Many thanks once again to Folkert for reporting the issues that were fixed in this release).

Explorer: Fixed name of Explorer SWF so it doesn't break on case-sensitive systems.
Explorer: Explorer: The results panel now hides when changing methods.

Beta 1.2 (released July 6, 2007)

See this blog post for release notes.

Beta 1.1 (released June 17, 2007)

Please read the list of changes in SWX Beta 1.1 from on blog.

Beta 1.0 (released 2007-5-25)

For a summary of changes in SWX Beta 1, please see this overview of SWX Beta 1 on my blog.

This is a major release, taking SWX from Alpha to Beta stage.

Added Full API. This API gives you an abstract interface (you don't have to do movie clip loading by hand), callbacks and timeouts and queued calls.
Added LoadManager and ExternalAsset classes (part of the Full API). You can use these to load any external asset in queue.
Refactored gateway and compiler code.
SWX gateway now performs error checking and returns errors.
Removed error reporting code from SWX Twitter API as this is now handled by the gateway.
API Change: The arguments property is now args to be consistent with the Full API.
Added Full API and No API versions of most Flash samples.
Updated the SWX start page with the latest code example from my blog.
Added cancelAllCalls() method to the SWX class and cancelAllLoads() method to the LoadManager class. These clear out the queue of waiting SWX calls and movie loads, respectively.
Added an additional method of allowing cross-domain data exchanges that doesn't require the main SWF to grant access to the SWX data SWF.

Alpha release notes

What's new in Alpha 0.2.2 (released 2007-04-28)

This is a minor release before 0.3.

The SWX Twitter API now supports all methods in the official Twitter API (except the featured users call as there's potentially a bug with the Twitter API on that call) as well as several additional custom methods. You can test out the Twitter API calls online using the Flex-based PHP Service Browser interface on the SWX web site. (If prompted, enter http://swxformat.org/php/amf.php as the gateway URL.)
Deployed the SWX PHP gateway on swxformat.org (you'll get a SWF if you hit that URL in the browser) and modified all samples to hit this gateway instead of the older one on aralbalkan.com. This will be the main public SWX gateway, going forward. Please feel free to use the Twitter API from this gateway for your own mashups, etc., if you want to.
Added a second small Flash Lite Twitter sample that uses the new LoadManager and ExternalAsset classes to standardize and control loading of SWX and other media in Flash Lite applications.
The SWX class has the new API code in there but this has not been tested and none of the examples use it. It won't be supported until Alpha 0.3 but you can peek at it if you're curious. Don't blame me if it breaks though!

What's new in Alpha 0.2.1 (released 2007-04-28)

The big feature in this release is compression!

Compression. You can now set a compression level from 0 (no compression; fastest) to 9 (maximum compression; slowest) in the SWX configuration file (php/swx_config.php).
Added a very simple Flash Lite 2.1 example. Note that POST appears to be broken in loadMovie() in Flash Lite 2.1, so use GET instead. I am going to work with the Adobe folks to make sure that this gets fixed in future versions of Flash Lite.

Older releases

What's new in Alpha 0.2.0 (released 2007-04-16)

SWX 0.2.0 is another huge release and brings with it an API change. Please read the release notes carefully!

API change: Prepare.forPhp() has been replaced with SWX.prepare(). See the updated introductory blog post on SWX for usage examples.
You can now do cross-domain data exchanges with SWX. If you want to disallow cross-domain access to your data, set the allowDomain paramater to false in the swx_config.php file (php/swx_config.php).
Added PowerPC support. Should now work on older (bi-endian) Macs.
The SWX analyzer now also works across domains. This means that once open, it will display data loading from any domain, local or remote.
GET support was broken on SWX gateway. This has now been fixed.
SWX now uses JSON instead of PHON when serializing arguments sent from the client to the server.
Fixed setVariable (bytecode) bug and removed respective workaround in SWFCompiler class.

What's new in Alpha 0.1.9 (released 2007-04-10, updated 2007-04-12 at 10:05 GMT).

Added Amfphp to the build.
SWX now works with Amfphp services (except those that return RecordSets). Fixed include path mismatch with Amfphp in service class includes, which was the only remaining issue.
Added interim workaround for object support (they are converted to associate arrays).
Added History Panel to SWX Analyzer.
Added SWX Twitter Badge sample app
Added SWX Twitter Stream sample app
Updated SWX gateway path for Flash examples. They now use http://localhost:8888/php/swx.php. This is in preparation for the MAMP bundles in 0.2.1).
Added config file SWX to allow custom services folder.
Integrated SWX config file with globals.php in Amfphp.
Renamed Amf gateway to amf.php (from gateway.php) to be consistent with other gateway naming conventions.
Changed include_once statements to include statements to decrease load.
Changed Analyzer and service browser to use UFO
License information added to build and start page
Started the move to friendlier end-user documentation (very early stages)
Added basic error checking to SWX Analyzer.
Tested with MAMP 1.4.1
Updated to work on (and tested with) PHP 4.4.4

What's new in Alpha 0.1h (released on 2007-04-02 at 18:22 GMT):

Alpha 0.1g had old versions of the SwfCompiler and SWX gateway. This release fixes that. It should now function as per the docs.

What's new in Alpha 0.1g:

API Change. The className property is now "serviceClass".
API Change. The data property is now "arguments".
How service methods are called has changed. Previously, the data property was sent as the first (and only) argument to the server-side method. Now, the data property has been replaced with the arguments property. You still pass an array as the arguments property but each top-level element in the arguments array is passed as a separate argument to your server-side method. This is going to allow you to use SWX with any existing service class(for example, Amfphp service classes.)
Deployment: Removed some .svn folders that were somehow checked in.
SVN: Added tags to repository.
Deployment: Renamed text folder to "docs" to make it clearer.
Docs: Updated docs to reflect API changes in 0.1g

What's new in Alpha 0.1f:

Previous releases had the php/lib folder missing.

What's new in Alpha 0.1e:

Broken build, please download 0.1f

Added manual PHON serializer.
Modified echo sample application to use the manual PHON serializer.
Renamed the automatic serializer AutoPhpSerializer. It's still there but you can choose whether you want to use it. I may remove this in future iterations.
Modified the SWX gateway to handle null values. The auto serializer was sending them over as undefined.

What's new in Alpha 0.1d:

Fixed bug with the SWX gateway that threw script errors for incorrectly formed requests. This bug was introduced with the addition of GET functionality in 0.1b.

What's new in Alpha 0.1c:

The example FLA is now saved in a format that can be read by Flash 8 (oops, sorry + thanks Paddy for alerting me to this!)

What's new in Alpha 0.1b:

PHP 4 and PHP 5 support. Tested with PHP 4.4.2 and PHP 5.1.4
Added GET support to the gateway. You can now call the gateway with both POST and GET

SWX Jaiku API

Published

aral

on August 31, 2007

in Documentation and SWX APIs

. 1 Comment

Folkert Hielema has implemented the complete Jaiku API for SWX.

You can find the full list of methods and test out the SWX Jaiku API from the SWX Service Browser.

All methods in the official Jaiku API are supported:

contactsStream
currentPresence
lastIndividualStreamEntry
lastStreamEntry
publicStream
sendPresence
userInformation
userStream

Feel free to use the SWX Jaiku API from the public SWX gateway in your own applications.

Many thanks to Folkert for implementing this API and sharing it with us all.

Using the SWX ActionScript Library to make SWX Twitter API calls

Published

aral

on August 25, 2007

in Documentation, Moo, SWX APIs, SWX Twitter API and Tutorial

. 0 Comments

If you don't want to work manually with movie clips (and you will probably not want to on a daily basis), you can use the SWX ActionScript Library instead. This library provides you with a completely abstract (and recommended) way of working with SWX RPC.

Here's how to display the text of the last status update of your friends using the SWX ActionScript Library:

import org.swxformat.*;
 
var swx:SWX = new SWX();
swx.gateway = "http://swxformat.org/php/swx.php";
swx.encoding = "POST";
swx.debug = true; 
 
var callParameters:Object =
{
    serviceClass: "Twitter",
    method: "getNumFriendsUpdates",
    args: ["aral", 1],
    result: [this, resultHandler]
}
 
swx.call(callParameters);
 
function resultHandler(event:Object)
{
    // Display the text property of the first result.
    trace (event.result[0].text);
}

I hope you enjoy working with the SWX Twitter API (also check out the Flickr API while you're at it) and, again, please feel free to use the public SWX gateway here on swxformat.org in your own mashups and applications.

Building your first Twitter mashup with SWX RPC

Published

aral

on August 25, 2007

in Documentation, Moo, SWX APIs, SWX Twitter API and Tutorial

. 0 Comments

If you want to develop Flash (and Flash Lite) applications that use data from Twitter, you can get started without installing anything at all by using the public SWX gateway on this site. (The public SWX gateway is located at http://swxformat.org/php/swx.php).

In fact, you can create your very first Twitter mashup in just four lines of code by following these simple instructions:

Open the SWX Data Analyzer
In Flash, create a new FLA.
Create a new movie clip and give it the instance name loader.

On the frame that has the loader movie clip, add the following script:

loader.serviceClass = "Twitter";
loader.method = "getPublicUpdates";
loader.debug = true;
loader.loadMovie("http://swxformat.org/php/swx.php", "GET");

That's all you need to get the latest public timeline updates from Twitter into Flash (you can see that the data is being loaded if you look in the SWX Data Analyzer).

To display the text of the first update in Flash, trace out the value of loader.result[0].text.

A quick hack to do this is shown below. Create a TextField on Stage and give it the instance name status and add the following code to your script:

function onEnterFrame
{
    status.text = loader.result[0].text;
}

Notice that you didn't need to download or install anything. That's because SWX is native! It uses SWF files to store and exchange data.

That's all you need to start working with SWX and Twitter! No API, external classes, etc. are necessary! And that little snippet of code (which, by the way, fits on to a moo card) also shows you exactly how SWX works. It loads the data in a SWF file and the data is accessible the moment it loads as native Flash objects. No deserialization necessary.

Of course, if you want to host your own SWX gateway or develop and test offline on your own machine, you can download and install SWX to your own machine. That will also allow you to create your own service classes and APIs.

Note: The Flash IDE will give you a security sandbox warning when you run the above example but the application will run correctly (look in the SWX Data Analyzer or trace out the loaded data to check this.) This warning occurs because you are running the SWF in the Flash IDE. If you put the SWF file on the same domain as the SWX gateway, it will also work without requiring any further code. However, if you want to use the Public SWX gateway and deploy your Flash applications to your own server, you must either manually call System.security.allowDomain, or (the recommended way is to) use the SWX ActionScript Library, as exlained below.

Introduction to the SWX Twitter API

Published

aral

on August 25, 2007

in Documentation, SWX APIs and SWX Twitter API

. 0 Comments

Twitter is a social network where you update your friends on what you're doing or thinking or feeling at the moment. It lets friends keep in touch with you in an ambient manner that's not invasive or distracting.

The SWX Twitter API implements all of the latest (as of July 28, 2007) official Twitter API methods as well as some custom methods of its own.

You can try out the SWX Twitter API methods online right this moment by using the SWX Service Explorer.

Introduction

Published

aral

on August 25, 2007

in Documentation, SWX APIs and SWX Flickr API

. 6 Comments

As of the upcoming SWX PHP Release Candidate 1, a full implementation of the Flickr API is included in SWX PHP.

You can start playing with the SWX Flickr API right now, using the Public SWX RPC gateway. Try the methods out online using the SWX Service Explorer.

Implements the full Flickr API, current as of August 1, 2007.
Liberal open source license (MIT).
Provides photo upload feature.
Actively maintained and updated.
Simplest way for Flash developers to work with Flickr.

SWX and SWX RPC advantages for mobile development

Published

aral

on August 25, 2007

in Documentation, Flash Lite and Mobile

. 1 Comment

SWX RPC is the only RPC solution for Flash Lite and, beyond that, it works really well and is simple to use. Here is a summary of some of the advantages of the SWX data format and SWX RPC for Flash Lite development:

Native; data is ready to use the moment it loads as native ActionScript objects.
No processor-intensive parsing, etc.
No plumbing code for deserializing requests.
Public gateway and APIs for mobile mashups.
Only RPC solution for Flash Lite.
Easy to understand and use.

Introduction

Published

aral

on August 25, 2007

in Documentation, Flash Lite and Mobile

. 0 Comments

SWX and SWX RPC work in Flash Lite 2.0 and 2.1. In fact, SWX RPC is the only RPC solution for Flash Lite since Flash Remoting is not supported on Flash Lite. With its low processor overhead and native support in Flash, SWX is the ideal data format for mobile applications with Flash Lite.

Check out the MiniFlickr sample application that comes with SWX PHP for an example of how to build data-driven Flash Lite applications using SWX.

Keep in mind that, due to a bug in Flash Lite, you cannot make POST requests in a loadMovie call. Instead, you must make GET requests when using SWX RPC with Flash Lite. For more information on this, see the Mobile Limitations section, below.

The MiniFlickr application makes use of the ExternalAsset and LoadManager classes that come with SWX AS to queue all load requests (data and assets such as images). This is essential in mobile development as most handsets will fail if you try to load two things at once. The SWX AS Full API handles the queueing of requests for you and gives you a general purpose load queue that you can use in your own applications. Make sure you study the MiniFlickr sample if you want to create Flash Lite applications using SWX PHP.

SWX: SWF Data Format

Archive for the 'Documentation' Category

Release Notes for SWX PHP 1.0

Release notes for SWX PHP RC1

Release notes for SWX PHP Beta 1.3 and earlier

Alpha release notes

SWX Jaiku API

Using the SWX ActionScript Library to make SWX Twitter API calls

Building your first Twitter mashup with SWX RPC

Introduction to the SWX Twitter API

Introduction

SWX and SWX RPC advantages for mobile development

Introduction

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