The Gaia panel was completely rewritten in Flex and includes optimization features, easier Gaia project management, and a new publish panel which makes developing with Gaia even easier. Gaia 3 also features a brand new version of SWFAddress (version 2.3) that fixes the Firefox 3 OSX redraw bug.

There is also a completely new addition to the Gaia project: the Gaia Framework Site Creator AIR application. This small AIR application allows you to quickly update your project's site.xml and visualize it as a wireframe sitemap.

Some of the features include XML validation, drag and drop re-ordering, reordering of asset load order, editing project properties, and printing a site map. You can download the first version from Wade Arnold's blog posting about the app.

Along with this release the public gateway has also been updated to use SWX PHP v2 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".

I will continue to work on updating the SWX 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!

• Refactored JavaScript implementation
• New SWFAddress.swc AS3 component
• New CS4 based Splash screen sample
• New Digg API sample
• New up() method for easier deep linking path navigation
• New XSS protection that doesn't affect special characters
• Support for Internet Explorer 8
• Support for custom HTTP status messages in the SEO sample
• Improved title handling
• Improved unload event handling for IE
• Updated Rails sample
• Fixed getBaseURL() for AS3
• Fixed Safari 2.0-2.0.3 support
• Build-in fix for the Firefox 3/Mac OSX blinking effect
• Additional onLoad fix for application/xml content type
• Fixed optional options parameter for the popup method
• Cross platform build script
• Various optimizations

This looks to be a major release, and took over seven months of development. I remember speaking to Rostislav about this release back at FOTB 2008 Brighton, so he truly has put in a lot of effort. Here's hoping it gets wrapped into the expected new Gaia release.

The new version is available for download here.

I had previously posted about the offline help and language reference locations in Flash CS4 which allows you to access the local copy of the language reference from within a web browser. But did you know that you could also access these local files from within the Flash CS4 help panel?

Normally when you access the help panel in Flash CS4 it automatically tries to load the online version of the documentation and language reference. I assume Adobe chose to do this so they could keep it updated and you could benefit from other user's comments in the Live Docs.

To access the local copy of Flash CS4 help and the language reference, just tell Flash to “keep you offline”:

Go to Window > Extensions > Connections. In the panel that pops up, click the arrow at the top-right and select “Offline options”. From there you can check the box for “Keep me offline”. Flash will then always default to using the offline help.

I should note that doing this may also prevent you from using any other panels which call out to the internet, such as Kuler and the Flash startup/new file screen. As of now I'm not using any Internet-connected panels and I have the splash screen set to not show on startup, so this works quite well for me.

Although Keith's post says he intended it to make AS3 easier for designers and beginners, I promptly installed the script and was happy to be on my way to typing much less when needing to code in the Flash IDE actions panel. I have a feeling other developers will agree that this is a huge time saver.

Keith has already posted an update to the script and made it available via download under the free MIT license, and I highly recommend checking it out.

As promised in my session, here are the slides (PDF link) for my talk, Working with SWX: The Native Data Format for the Flash Platform. I have included a bunch of notes on what I spoke about on each slide in an attempt to aid those who couldn't make it to the session. In addition, here are some of the resources I posted in the chat during the session:

SWX on Google Code: http://swx-format.googlecode.com
SWX on twitter (follow for updates on AS3 release): http://twitter.com/swx
My twitter account: http://twitter.com/jonmacdonald

Overall the talk went very well, and seemed to have a great response. At one point there were over 60 people in the room - so an awesome turnout! Also, the announcement of SWX for ActionScript 3 received very positive responses.

As soon as the videos from the conference are released into public domain, I'll post another update with a link to the session recording.

Thanks again to Aral and <head> Conference for having me speak!

This Saturday, October 25th at 2pm PST, I'll be speaking at the <head> Conference on Working with SWX: The Native Data Format for the Flash Platform. Here is my session description:

In this session we'll cover the basics of SWX: what it is and what it is best used for, how systemwide simplicity benefits developers, how to use the free public gateway for integrating APIs into your mobile and web applications, and plans for the upcoming ActionScript 3 release.

If you are unfamiliar, <head> is a global web conference -- all sessions are attended online using Adobe's Acrobat Connect. There are a few local hubs scattered around the world, so you can also sign up to attend those hubs if you'd like to network, meet speakers in person, etc. Aral, the conference organizer, has arranged for an amazing line-up of speakers over three days.

Hope to see you there!

[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.

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

The book covers a completely open source work flow for Flash and Flex developers, as well as providing concrete examples and documentation for some of the most popular open source projects, including: PaperVision3D, SWX, Red5, Fuse, and AMFPHP. I contributed the chapter on SWX, featuring both mobile and website uses with the p.i.n.k. Sprits website as a case study. More details can be found on the Friends of Ed website. Marc Hughes, one of the main authors on the project, also has a good write-up on his blog.

Overall, I really enjoyed the experience of writing and hope to continue to do so in the future. If I learned anything, it is how much time and effort really goes in to these books -- I can't imagine what Colin Moock must have felt like writing the massive 1000 page effort that is Essential ActionScript 3.0. Just getting the 40 pages I wrote through the whole publishing system took over a month, including writing, technical and editing reviews, page formatting and proofing.

All of this has led me to start thinking about why as a developer I own such a large and ever-expanding library of printed material. The photo to the right is of my library of work-related books. Mostly reference material and inspiration, but all in print. To this day I still buy printed copies of books even when a PDF version is available. As a developer who helps create digital experiences, shouldn't I be trying to help expand the digital world? I doubt that I'll ever stop buying printed materials, but the notion is certainly one to think about.

http://whatismyflashplayerversion.com

As a developer, I get this question from clients all the time, so I thought it time to create a simple service where I could send them to check.

In the future I'd like to have the site automatically test to see if the version reported from SWFObject is the same as the latest version, and if not, provide a link (or better yet, Express Install) to the latest version. However, I'd prefer to not have to keep the latest version number updated by hand, so if anyone knows where I can find an official data feed (RSS, a simple text file, etc) of the latest general public release version, please post in the comments.

Enjoy!