On 2/24/06, Richard Lyman wrote: > I haven't gotten any feedback yet (should I have waited longer? How > 'active' is the wiki?)... > > ... so I just want to fan the flames a bit and ask for feedback... > > http://osflash.org/fxr > and > http://osflash.org/fxr_howto >
Hey Richard, Well, you've successfully fanned the flames. Luke Bayes (http://www.lukebayes.com) and I (http://www.alimills.com) have been working on this idea on and off for over half a year. We call it, SwfRunner. I'll try to post more in a couple of days, but in the meantime here're some answers: > 1. Is this helpful to anyone but me? Yep. My ultimate interest in writing software has always been to write apps that work on desktop/web/device in online/offline modes on multiple platforms. That's why I develop for the Flash player, and that's why Luke and I chose XulRunner for AsUnit's (http://www.asunit.org) toolset . SWFs running in XulRunner make the desktop part of this puzzle a reality. > 2. Other than the current requirement of packaging XULRunner along > with your app - what negatives do you see? There are a couple: 1. It's illegal to distribute the Flash player without a license to do so. As far as I know, MDM (http://www.multidmedia.com) is the only company with this license in the desktop wrapper space. 2. If you ship your app without the Flash player, getting it is yet another download dependecy for your app to run. Even more concerning, your app may be designed to work with a version of the Flash player that's ends up being no longer available. 3. XulRunner currently doesn't install browser plugins properly. 4. XulRunner doesn't have an installer yet. You need an installer to place a 'FlashPlayerTrust' file on the end user's machine for local file I/O. 5. The Linux Flash player may be buggy. I don't know if this is true or not, but I feel like I heard it somewhere. > 3. > a) Is anyone as excited as I am that you can get a 'standalone > desktop application' that uses Flash as it's interface? > b) Are you excited that you can any look and feel by just swapping > out any of the emerging Flash-based GUI toolkits - and that your look > and feel will be _exactly_ the same on win/nix/osx? Hellz yes! > 4. What ways would you use to connect Flash to something that would > allow you to access files on the host machine? XPCOM? XMLSocket (what > I use)? AMF? XMPCOM works and is the cleanest, but you'll have to create a 'FlashPlayerTrust' file. If I new C/C++ I'd have written the installer for XulRunner already. You need an installer to put this file in the proper location. You can learn more about those and other Flash 8 security related issues at http://www.macromedia.com/devnet/flash/articles/fplayer8_security.html. Here's some code that I have working: [xul_code] <?xml version="1.0"?> <?xml-stylesheet href="chrome://global/skin/" type="text/css"?> <window id="swfrunner" title="SwfRunner" persist="height width screenX screenY" width="550" height="400" screenX="50" screenY="200" xmlns:html="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"; xmlns="http://www.mozilla.org/keymaster/gatekeeper/there.is.only.xul";> <script> function proxy(str) { alert(">> proxy: " + str); } function nsFileRead(location) { var loc = "C:\\cygwin\\home\\alimills\\projects\\SwfRunner\\trunk\\core\\src\\xul\\swfrunner\\chrome\\swfrunner\\SwfRunner.txt"; var file = Components.classes["@mozilla.org/file/local;1"] .createInstance(Components.interfaces.nsILocalFile); file.initWithPath(loc); if ( file.exists() == false ) { alert("File does not exist"); } var is = Components.classes["@mozilla.org/network/file-input-stream;1"] .createInstance( Components.interfaces.nsIFileInputStream ); is.init( file,0x01, 00004, null); var sis = Components.classes["@mozilla.org/scriptableinputstream;1"] .createInstance( Components.interfaces.nsIScriptableInputStream ); sis.init( is ); var output = sis.read( sis.available() ); return output; } function nsFileWrite(str, location) { // write file to location } </script> <html:embed id="swfrunner" name="swfrunner" src="SwfRunner.swf" quality="high" bgcolor="#66cc66" width="100%" height="100%" align="middle" allowScriptAccess="always" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer"; /> </window> [/xul_code] [as_code] package org.swfrunner.net { import flash.external.ExternalInterface; public class File { private var location:String; private var data:String; public function File(loc:String) { location = loc; data = ""; } public function read():Void { data = ExternalInterface.call("nsFileRead", location); // data = "Reading in data..."; } public function write():Void { // ExternalInterface.call("nsFileWrite", data, location); } public function toString():String { if(data == null) { data = ""; } return data; } } } [/as_code] The above code with the information at the OsFlash link you sent and the the Macromedia link about 'FlashPlayerTrust' files should be enough for you to get XPCOM working. I haven't talked about SwfRunner before today because I've been working on an AS/JS library for it to support online/offline file access. I feel like such a library is essential to writing online/offline apps properly. While working through the problems, my reading (which I really haven't had enough time for) has included the only two books I've found that come close to dealing with disconnected software. The books are Enterprise Integration Patterns (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0321200683/sr=8-1/qid=1140844930/ref=pd_bbs_1/002-8946131-3020003?%5Fencoding=UTF8) and Data Patterns (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0735622000/qid=1140844979/sr=2-1/ref=pd_bbs_b_2_1/002-8946131-3020003?s=books&v=glance&n=283155). You should consider checking them out. > 5. Are there ways you could transparently connect to a resource on the > host machine to fulfill #4? (transparently means that the host os > _does not_ pop up any warning like: application such-and-such is > attempting to connect to... do you want to allow it to connect?) Yep. The above code does as long as the SWF and the XUL document are on the same local machine. You start to run into problems when they're hosted remotely. Here's a list of resources that I've found useful and bookmarked: Xul ------------------------------------------ http://lukebayes.blogspot.com/2005/07/xul-runner.html http://lukebayes.blogspot.com/ http://www.darronschall.com/weblog/archives/000108.cfm http://developer.mozilla.org/en/docs/XULRunner http://www.mozilla.org/xpfe/xulref/ http://www.oreillynet.com/mozilla/ Disconnected Patterns ------------------------------------------ http://www.richinternet.de/blog/index.cfm?entry=9D486E1A-A9CF-673F-9941EE719FAE197B http://www.enterpriseintegrationpatterns.com/ http://martinfowler.com/bliki/EventPoster.html My soon (next week) to be active blog ------------------------------------------ http://www.assertTrue.com Well with all that said, the work we've done on SwfRunner will probably be made public sometime soon. It's been our goal all along to package and release the work as an open source project called SwfRunner. The problem is, XulRunner isn't mature enough. At the least, it needs to install plugins properly. And if you want Flash and XUL to communicate, you also need an installer to get those stinkin 'FlashPlayerTrust' files where they belong. I'll be at Flashfoward next week and would be excited to talk more about SwfRunner there if you're attending. Have fun and congradulations on the find. I think that XulRunner and SWFs make a very happy couple. Take care. Ali _______________________________________________ osflash mailing list [email protected] http://osflash.org/mailman/listinfo/osflash_osflash.org
