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

Archive for the 'SWX PHP' Category

GalToGalWalk.org

Published

on September 30, 2007

. 4 Comments

The Gal To Gal Foundation has a new web site and online campaign for the Gal To Gal Virtual Walk 2007. It aims to improve the lives of women diagnosed with Stage IV breast cancer and is expected to raise $1m. The site is due to be featured on the Martha Stewart Show on Monday, October 1st to a national audience in the United States.

The site it uses SWX RPC, with a SWX PHP back-end.

Jon MacDonald has a case study of the Gal To Gal Virtual Walk project, wherein he explains that the entire site was built in one-and-a-half weeks:

SWX is used extensively throughout the site to communicate with the back-end and database. This enabled the rapid development timeline, and made the process of storing and passing data through PHP seamless. I haven't seen any other true sites built with SWX, but rather small mash-ups and widgets, so I believe this is a first for the SWX project.

Read more about GalToGalWalk.org in my blog post and on Jon's case study.

New tutorial: Creating a Flash blog using CakeSWXPHP

Published

aral

on September 30, 2007

in SWX PHP and Tutorial

. 3 Comments

Wouter Verweirder has released a new tutorial on setting up and using CakeSWXPHP, the SWX RPC implementation for the CakePHP framework that is based on SWX PHP.

In the tutorial, Wouter takes you through the process of creating a Flash blog, starting with the installation and setup of CakeSWXPHP.

The tutorial shows you how to create a database for your Flash blog and write the CakePHP code to store and retrieve data from it.

This is a comprehensive, intermediate tutorial that will be invaluable in teaching Flash developers who work with CakePHP how to get up and running with CakeSWXPHP.

Great stuff, Wouter!

Read the CakeSWXPHP tutorial on Wouter's blog.

Security patch for SWX PHP 1.0/1.0.1

Published

aral

on September 27, 2007

in SWX PHP

. 5 Comments

If you have deployed SWX PHP 1.0 or 1.0.1 (not the SWX PHP Deployment Bundle) to a public server, then please download showsource.php.zip and unzip it into the /php/services/_idvr/ folder on your server to fix a potentially exploitable security issue with the showsource.php file that displays the source code for your services in the browser.

The issue will also affect the SWX MAMP Bundle if you have deployed that to a public server (which you should not do in any case as MAMP is not secured for deployment).

Thanks go to Sébastien Ballesté-Antich for reporting the issue after discovering it on the SWX homepage. Normally, this should not affect you as you should only deploy the SWX PHP Deployment Bundle to a public server. (The SWX homepage runs an instance of the full SWX PHP package to demostrate the Start Page and other features). I've now patched the SWX PHP instance on the SWX homepage with this update.

The SWX PHP Deployment Bundle is a bare-bones version of SWX PHP that doesn't contain the fancy Start Page, etc., that the development version has.

To clarify, this is not a security issue with the SWX RPC gateway or assembler itself in the SWX PHP implementation but with an unrelated file that is used to display the source code of your PHP service classes through the browser when using the SWX PHP Start Page during development and it affects development versions of SWX PHP only.

The SWX PHP Deployment Bundle is not affected by this issue.

Can I use a folder other than /php/services to hold my SWX PHP service classes?

Published

aral

on September 18, 2007

in FAQ and SWX PHP

. 0 Comments

You sure can. All you need to do is change a setting in the SWX configuration file (swx_config.php). You can find the file in the php folder.

In it, just change the $servicesPath variable to point to where your services are (relative to the SWX gateway).

// Service Path: Put your service classes in this folder.
// Is relative to the SWX gateway (swx.php).
$servicesPath = "services/";

Why am I getting Security Sandbox Violations in the Flash IDE when running the sample applications or my own applications?

Published

aral

on September 13, 2007

in FAQ, SWX ActionScript Library, SWX PHP and SWX RPC

. 1 Comment

Summary: This warning only occurs when testing your applications from the Flash IDE. Cross-domain data exchange will work correctly when you run your applications from a web server. You can ignore this warning.

SWX RPC lets you to make cross-domain data calls (you can turn this off by setting the allowDomain option in the SWX PHP configuration file at php/swx_config.php to false). This means, for example. that you can have a SWF running on your development server or on your shared host somewhere and you can still consume the SWX RPC services (APIs) on the Public SWX Gateway on swxformat.org.

The Flash IDE, however, will display a Security Sandbox Violation when you run SWX applications in the IDE. This is because applications that run in the IDE use the file:// protocol as opposed to http://. Rest assured that your applications will work correctly when tested from a web server using the http:// protocol.

In short, you can safely ignore this warning.

For a longer explanation, read on.

The way SWX RPC enables cross-domain data exchange is by writing an allowDomain statement to the exact URL of the SWF that called it (your application) in the SWX data SWF that it sends back. The SWX ActionScript Library sends this URL in the SWX RPC call for you.

If you are using the native method via loadMovie(), you need to send the value of _url in a parameter called url in your SWX RPC call manually. Alternatively, when using the native method, if you don't send a url parameter, you can specifically allowDomain the loaded SWX data SWF from the main application and it, in turn, it will allowDomain its parent (your application) if it doesn't receive the url. This second method is discouraged, however, as the SWX data SWF should not require access to your application (if only does so to allow your application access to itself by calling allowDomain on _parent) and a fake SWX data SWF from an untrusted SWX RPC gateway could possibly access data and/or alter your main application when using this method.

To summarize, you can ignore this warning and you should either send a url parameter when using the native method via loadMovie() in SWX RPC or, even simpler, use the SWX ActionScript Library when your applications need to access data across domains.

SWX PHP 1.01 (Minor update) Released

Published

aral

on September 13, 2007

in Releases and SWX PHP

. 4 Comments

In response to a possible PHP configuration-related issue where the SWX PHP Start Page may not display correctly for some users, I've updated the SWX PHP and SWX PHP Deployment Bundle packages with a .01 (minor) release.

If you are affected by this, please download the latest release of SWX PHP.

The issue does not affect the SWX PHP MAMP Bundle, which remains at 1.0.

I want to thank Tom Beaver for reporting the issue to me in great detail and working with me to test the solution. Thanks, Tom!

Why is my SWX PHP Start Page messed up?

Published

aral

on September 12, 2007

in FAQ and SWX PHP

. 0 Comments

Tom Beaver reported that his SWX PHP Start Page was broken when he installed SWX PHP 1.0 under Apache on OS X although it was working fine with the SWX MAMP Bundle. After some investigation, I realized that it was because I was using PHP short tags in Version 1.0. If short tags are turned off in the PHP configuration file, the SWX PHP Start Page will not display correctly.

You should only run into this problem if you downloaded SWX PHP on September 11th or 12th (GMT) and your PHP instance is configured to disallow short tags.

If this problem affects you, please download the latest release of SWX PHP (Version 1.01 or later) which has been updated to use long tags throughout the SWX PHP Start Page.

Althernatively, you can turn short_open_tag on in the PHP configuration file (php.ini). Instructions on how to do this are available in the PHP Manual.

SWX PHP and SWX ActionScript Library Version 1.0 Released

Published

aral

on September 11, 2007

in Announcements, News, Releases, SWX ActionScript Library and SWX PHP

. 7 Comments

SWX PHP 1.0 and SWX ActionScript Library 1.0 Release Announcement

It's my great pleasure to announce that after six months of alphas and betas, SWX PHP 1.0 and SWX ActionScript Library 1.0 are now available for download.

The major changes from SWX PHP Release Candidate 1 include a revamped Start Page with new, royalty-free icons, and a friendly new list view for the Services and Flash examples folders.

I've also updated the SWX Nabaztag API so that you can now specify the voice that you want your Nabaztag bunny to talk in and you can move its ears and send it ear and LED choreographies. You can test out and use the SWX Nabaztag API and the other SWX APIs (Flickr, Twitter, etc.) directly from the Public SWX Gateway using the SWX Service Explorer.

Finally, there's a new LOG_ALL configuration option in swx_config.php that determines whether non-error (status, info, profiling) messages are written to the PHP error log. Set this to false on deployments for better performance. The setting defaults to true as it is useful for troubleshooting during development.

Update: Based on Jon MacDonald's suggestion (thanks, Jon!), I've also created a SWX PHP Deployment Bundle to make it easier for you to deploy SWX PHP to your server. Use the regular SWX PHP and SWX PHP MAMP Bundles to develop with and then deploy the lean-and-mean deployment bundle to your server. The deployment bundle is much smaller than the regular build as it doesn't contain the source code for the Flex-based tools or the sample Flash FLA files.

The release of SWX PHP 1.0 and SWX ActionScript Library 1.0 is something I've been looking forward to for quite a while now and I hope that SWX simplifies your development life and makes it as fun for you to create Flash and Flash Lite applications and mashups as it has for me.

In the next two months, I'm going to be traveling around the world to talk about SWX at FlashForward Boston, FlashForum Conference in Germany, MAX Chicago, MAX Barcelona, FITC Hollwood, MAX Japan, and Flash on the Beach in my home town of Brighton, in the UK. In addition to this, development work continues (I just made my first post-1.0 commit to the SVN repository) and will include efforts to create a Flash 9 version of SWX PHP, as well as SWX RPC implementations for Ruby, Python, J2EE, and .Net.

In the next few days, I will be releasing Internet Drafts for SWX and SWX RPC which I hope will become Informational RFCs.

Here's to Version 1.0! This is just the beginning.

Read the full release notes for SWX PHP 1.0 and download the 1.0 release.

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!)

SWX PHP and SWX ActionScript Library Release Candidate 1 Released

Published

aral

on September 3, 2007

in Releases, SWX ActionScript Library and SWX PHP

. 5 Comments

I just released Release Candidate 1 (RC1) of SWX PHP and the SWX ActionScript Library. The SWX PHP MAMP Bundle has also been updated to RC1. Get them now from the download page.

There is a whole slew of changes in this update and you can find the whole list in the release notes for SWX PHP RC1.

One of the major changes is that SWX RPC calls can now return simple data types as opposed to the previous behavior which was to wrap simple data types in an array. This may break your existing applications, so please read these instructions for updating your SWX applications to SWX PHP RC1.

Among the highlights of the RC1 release is the release of the SWX Flickr API, which has been available on the Public SWX Gateway for a little while now. The SWX Flickr API implements the full Flickr API and has some additional utility methods that make it the easiest way to work with Flickr in Flash. Take a look at the miniflickr Flash Lite sample application that comes with this release to learn how to work with the new Flickr API as well as some of the advanced features of the SWX ActionScript Library like the ExternalAsset and LoadManager classes.

SWX PHP RC1 has two more new APIs: The Jaiku API and Numpa API (Numpa is the Netherlands version of Twitter), both by my dear friend Folkert Hielema. You can find Folkert's other SWX-related work, as well as the work of other community members, in the new SWX Showcase.

You can explore and test all of the SWX APIs online using the SWX Service Explorer.

The SWX Data Analyzer has also been updated and now supports the display of simple data types correctly. It also displays debug information in a clearer manner.

With the RC1 release, the SWX ActionScript Library is available as a separate download. This means that if you don't want to write your own server-side classes, you don't have to download the full SWX PHP package just to use the high-level ActionScript classes.

Unless there are any major issues discovered in the next few days, Release Candidate 1 is going to be very close to the final release version of SWX PHP and the SWX ActionScript Library. If you do notice any issues, please report them to me. SWX PHP is now in feature freeze and only critical bugs will be fixed at this point (no new feature requests, etc.) In the next few days, I'm going to be updating the documentation, making some aesthetic changes, and recording more screencasts to prepare SWX PHP for the Version 1.0 release next week.

We're very close to Version 1.0, and that's just the beginning!

SWX: SWF Data Format

Archive for the 'SWX PHP' Category

GalToGalWalk.org

New tutorial: Creating a Flash blog using CakeSWXPHP

Security patch for SWX PHP 1.0/1.0.1

Can I use a folder other than /php/services to hold my SWX PHP service classes?

Why am I getting Security Sandbox Violations in the Flash IDE when running the sample applications or my own applications?

SWX PHP 1.01 (Minor update) Released

Why is my SWX PHP Start Page messed up?

SWX PHP and SWX ActionScript Library Version 1.0 Released

Release Notes for SWX PHP 1.0

SWX PHP and SWX ActionScript Library Release Candidate 1 Released

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