Flash integration extension

Friday 08 August 2008 1:00:34 am

Hi Jameel,

I'm not sure I can help you, but here's my experience on the subject anyways.

I have integrated ezp and Flash at different levels. Either you can have ezp simply handling the content, or also you can let it be a basis for handling much more, so that flash is output of ezp instead (or in addition to) xhtml.

<b>Handling content only</b>

This is done by letting ezp produce xml. I have done this in two ways, by the use of the template and layout modules. The former is perhaps faster, but the latter has a much cleaner setup and is better keeping xhtml- and xml-output separated.

There is a faster way though. There exists a JSON-extension (http://projects.ez.no/json) which is still in beta, but quite fast. Fetching and chewing a JSON-object (e.g. using http://www.json.org/json.as) is quite economic compared to the heavy xml-stuff.

<b>Flash output</b>

If you use e.g. FLEX or OpenLaszlo, you can use ezp to let the editor handle everything from backgrounds to sliding effects (or whatever you need), then produce the mxml- or lzx-file which is compiled into flash (and recompiled the next time the input-file changes, i.e. when the editor has made changes).

If you create sites that are typically "posters" where visual effects are critical, then this is a very nice solution. It can also be comined with an offline solution giving the opurtunity to produce a fancy flash-executable that men in expensive suites can use to give stunning keynotes.

Felix

Publlic Relations Manager
Greater Stavanger
www.greaterstavanger.com

Friday 08 August 2008 3:31:08 am

Thanks for the replies.

Patrick - I've already had a look at the remoting extension but it doesn't seem to be in development any more.

Felix - We went with the XML option previously but it is far too heavy to be used on our current crop of development projects. We had thought of using FLEX to generate flash files but have been unsure of how we'd get the data into a flex framework without writing a FLEX extension because any template we wrote to produce mxml would necessarily be cached as would any compiled flash file. It would seem that every time there is an edit to the content we would have to recompile the flash file, but this is not something the editors would be able to do so it would require us to actively manage the compiling process. Unless I am missing something this is not really a viable solution as it would require too much administration after the content has been edited. If I am mistaken, would you mind providing a synopsis of how you have achieved the Flex integration so that content changes wouldn't require subsequent developer action.