Dear all,

As I've said in a reply on The Black Blog we now use a proprietary flash tool on one of our sites under construction. We're not completely happy with it. For example it doesn't display a play button that cannot be overlooked like Youtube does. But mainly because it's not free software, so we can't continue to develop it. 

That's why we're going to (let a flash company) make such a tool with a GPL v.2 attached, like WebGUI has. We like to donate this tool to the WebGUI community and we hope that it will be integrated into WebGUI, so it will work out of the box. I think it's a cool thing to have in a default install, because it looks good and is very easy for a content manager to manipulate.

Attached is the specification we've written so far. Not yet in the specification is that the actionscript will be in external files, so they are more easily editable. We keep working on this specification until next wednesday, the 27th of February. We will discuss the final specification on the 5th of March and it will be ready (tested and bugfixed) on the 19th of March. 

Not in the specification is that the XML is generated by a templatable macro now called XMLThread.pm in an AssetProxy to give it an XML mime type. The macro instantiates a Thread asset, gets the template vars and returns the thing with a templateId that is passed to the macro as a parameter. So one macro on the site will do for all collaboration systems. 

Of course this could be a package and a macro that are submitted on the 'get add ons' section. However, it's quite hard to install. You have to install the macro, put the javascripts and actionscripts somewhere and make sure they are refecenced correctly in the templates. Besides I'm interested in the question if it is perceived as disirable to put it in the standard distribution and even more: can more general guidelines be formulated regarding when such a thing can become part of WebGUI. 

Kind regards,

Arjan Widlak

United Knowledge
Internet for the public sector

www.unitedknowledge.nl

Hi JT,

Glad you like the idea. And I will have a look at Yahoo's Flash developer center.

You say that it sounds like a hack, but unless I'm mistaken, in any case, whether it's a CS, a thread, a folder and - I guess - the new gallery asset, you need a macro/assetproxy combination to display the contents in the desired XML format. 

Another way to do this is to make a shortcut, override the template and place the shortcut in an assetproxy. However, this is not user-friendly: you need to make a shortcut and place it an assetproxy every time again. You won't make content manager happy with that. In my solution, you always call the one and the same url with an assetId.

There is - to my knowledge - no other or general way to display the contents of an asset with another template and an XML mime type other than writing a macro for it and put it in an AssetProxy to overwrite the mime-type.

Of course an other way would be to give every asset an extra XML template and the ability to be called as XML with an XML mimetipe. 

Just for complete information, this is the url with an example assetId that the swf calls for:

http://www.webgui-help.nl/webgui-help-monoslideshow.xml?thread=f7k9j4RqUhp9wvDtWLpm7Q

Right now, this macro only handles threads. In the top of the template of this macro, some additional configuration information is sent to the swf. The template loop starts at <album thumbnail=. 

Kind regards,

Arjan Widlak

United Knowledge
Internet for the public sector

www.unitedknowledge.nl

But  really the point I was making is that this is much cooler and not a  
hack if it's directly integrated with the assets in question, rather  
than strapped on as a macro.

Let me check if I understand correctly:

- the asset in question should have an RSS view with the images available as template variables

- you put the flash html in one of the asset's normal templates

- you select the approriate RSS template to go along with the flash player

- and in the normal template you call the assets own url with some parameter to make it display the RSS feed.

If that is what you mean, I would guess that may be more elegant form a programmers' point of view, but the content manager has to select an extra template that has to make a working combination. 

Does your preference for using the gallery in combination with the flash player have consequences for the specifications of the player? 

Kind regards,

Arjan Widlak

United Knowledge
Internet for the public sector

www.unitedknowledge.nl