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!

[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.

http://blogs.adobe.com/open/2008/04/the_open_screen_project.html

As a part of the announcement, Adobe is publishing exactly how the SWF format works without restrictions, and removing all other barriers to getting Flash on the widest range of devices. Set top/cable boxes, all mobile phones, televisions, your appliances... anything technical, really. Even those devices without a screen and/or user interface. Bill Perry does a great job of going into more detail on the implications for devices on his blog.

Ryan Stewart has a great post explaining all the implications of this announcement, for devices and desktop computers alike. He goes into more detail on the several parts of the announcement, so it is worth the read.

As someone who makes their living from the Flash ecosystem, you should care greatly about this announcement. It may not seem like it to a non-developer, but this is huge for anyone who knows how to use Flash. The thought of having Flash everywhere is finally a reality for those who want to include it in their products as a user interface layer, or even to allow developers to control the product using ActionScript. And this means that your capabilities to design, develop, and then deploy your Flash experiences just became more marketable and useful.

Lastly, as a member of the Flash community, you should also be excited about the implications this has on open source projects such as SWX, AMFPHP, and the like. The more open the specifications surrounding the various parts of the Flash ecosystem, the easier it is for members of the community to create tools and open source projects which contribute to the growth and prominence of said ecosystem... and make all of our lives as participants in that ecosystem that much more interesting and fun.

At issue is the crossdomain.xml file -- you'll need to add or update the file to ensure your services continue to function properly. Wade Arnold, a contributor to AMFPHP (which is also included with and used in SWX) has a great write-up on how to fix AMFPHP/SWX including a sample you can download and edit for your domain on his blog.

More details about the player, and the newly revamped Flash Player Download Center, can be found on Justin Everett-Church's blog posting about Flash Player 9.0.124. Adobe Developer Center has a helpful write-up about the exact changes made. Lastly, John Dowdell has an informative post with lots of helpful links.

Adobe has done a great job with communicating to the community that this change would be coming, and has provided a lot of resources to ensure sites were not affected. Today's information push is just another example of the great communication. Kudos, Flash Player team!

For the initial push I posted: SmoothImageLoader (AS2), RegExp (AS2), Tooltip (AS2), BadFilter (AS2), ConstantContact (PHP), and SubmitVerisignPayment (PHP). For more details on these classes, please visit:

http://www.jonnymac.com/blog/code/

Enjoy!

The competition has three categories: Web, Mobile, and API, and each of the three winners will receive a prize package worth almost $4,000. Not a shabby deal at all. The prize packages include a copy of Adobe CS 3 Web Premium Bundle, a one year premium subscription to Lynda.com, a Nabaztag/tag wi-fi bunny, and an iPod Touch. I have a Nabaztag/tag, and winning one of these alone is worth a few hours of work!

If you have been following the SWX project at all, you already know that I have used SWX on a couple of projects and that I am a huge fan of its simplicity. It just works, and it makes your life as a developer easier. What's not to like? This contest is the perfect way to give it a shot and possibily win some cool stuff.

More details on the contest can be found on the SWX site.

Today Aral Balkan released SWX 1.0 for PHP, his answer to Flash Remoting. I have been waiting patiently for this release, as I am currently in the midst of building out two larger-scale projects with remoting and feel much better about using a 1.0 (read: non-beta) tool. Overall, SWX has been a joy to use. Aral has certainly accomplished his main task: simplify the whole remoting process from setup to development to deployment. Setup is as easy as copying the directory to your server, and development is much more kind since he re-wrote the AMFPHP service browser and debugger in Flex, while adding a few features to make it generally more usable. Using the services in your AS2 projects also couldn't be more simple. And to top it all off it is completely open source (is anything Aral does not open source?).
I was initially concerned about performance under heavy loads, but Aral was quick to give a test case and show that even with 250 concurrent hits to the gateway, it should still perform. It would take an extremely busy site to get 250 concurrent hits to the gateway (note that the gateway only gets hit when there is a service call).

My only recommendation at this point is to release a ZIP of only the files you need to deploy to the server. While I don't mind having all the graphics for the project and Flex source for the service browser and debugger, I don't want to upload those files to my server and digging through all the folders to figure out what is needed can be a drag.

If you haven't already, I highly suggest you give SWX a go. You can even use the public services that Aral has posted -- so you don't even need your own gateway setup to get started. Oh, I should also note that because the SWF file that SWX produces is Flash Lite 2.0 and 2.1. compatible, it can be viewed on a good number mobile devices.

Want to learn more? See Aral speak at one of several conferences in the next few months.

A huge thanks to Aral for the hard work!

I'll be sure to post links to the projects as soon as they are completed, along with additional thoughts and tips on working with SWX.

Let's look at the current manifestations of ECMAScript 4, the standard on which ActionScript 3 and the new version of JavaScript are based. There is Flash/Flex (SWF) with delivery to the web browser via a plug-in, JavaScript for direct interaction with the web browser, and AIR (Apollo) for desktop delivery. The only missing piece is server-side deployment, a fact of which I'd bet Adobe is well aware.

PHP is a great server-side language which I use very often, but every language has its own nuances, and switching continuously between PHP and AS3 often opens the door for several small bugs due to the syntactical differences.

As a framework for how much effort it would take to port AS3 for server-side usage, let's look at how PHP5 and AS3 compare on key web development factors. These core features are supported in both PHP5 and AS3:

- MySQL/database integration (PHP built-in, AS3 through classes)
- Open source and free
- Extendable (PHP through plugins, AS3 through classes)
- Large developer community
- Class-based development possible (Full OOP in AS3)

So with most of the features needed already included in AS3 or written by the community, why not take the extra step and port it to the server side? I'm sure Adobe doesn't want to sell Coldfusion 8 short, so there is that corporate hurdle. I could see it being integrated with Coldfusion in a similar manner that ActionScript can be included in MXML through the usage of a code/cdata block.

All said, nothing is stopping the community from developing an open source project based around this concept. A quick search of Google reveals that at least one other person is having similar thoughts.

Would you use AS3 if it was ported for server-side usage?

More information is available on Patrick Mineault's blog.