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As to this post the flash player 8 will support E4X (ECMAScript XML). That`s some powerfull stuff. Quick description:

“E4X adds native XML datatypes to the ECMAScript language, extends the semantics of familiar ECMAScript operators for manipulating XML objects and adds a small set of new operators for common XML operations, such as searching and filtering. It also adds support for XML literals, namespaces, qualified names and other mechanisms to facilitate XML processing.”

Haven`t they said Flash 8 will be focused on the designer. Turns out everyone will get something to play with!

Check this out!

You`ve probably heard it Macromedia and Adobe are merging.
Well if it`s good news or bad – who knows right now?
It will be interesting what that means for the future of Macromedia`s
RIA development approach. Adobe is not well known for it`s compassion to developers needs but i found an interestig article were adobe describes their vision of the future of RIA platforms. Hope they change this now to fully support the flash player.

I`m currently investigating the possibilities of using SVG in Bex.
The support for SVG in Flex is rather lame at the moment, so adding this feauture to Bex would be a killer.

The only working solution i found so far is SVG2SWF.
On their site they show an impressive rendering of an svg image. Unfortunately this is written in python.
So i decided to start my own implementation of an SVG2SWF renderer in java, again using the fabulous libraries
of flagstone.
Expect more on this soon!

Benz

Ok now i`ve changed the way Image Injector works. Now it works as a command line tool. You use it just like mtasc with the same options. In your class files you can use Embed Metadata just like in Flex. For now there is one difference to Flex in Flex you would write

[Embed(source=’images/matthews1.jpg’)]
var image1:String;

With Image Injector you have to use

[Embed(source=’images/matthews1.jpg’)]
var image1:String;=”matthews1″

You can than use attach Movie like this:
_root.attachMovie(image1,”img1″,3);

I`ve included a small example. It`s the modified sample from the mtasc site.
Just run example but and see what happends.

!!! In order to use ImageInjector you will have to copy mtasc into the same directory were
you have the Image Injector.

This is still in early stages. My class parser is not perfect yet. At the moment only the class that
you entered in the command line will be searched for embeds. I will add recursive searching later.
Ahh and your class has to be in the same directory as mtasc as i`m not checking for the classpath
right now. I will add that soon.

Please check it out (at own risk) and report problems.

Thanx

Benz

I forgot to say in my last post that MTASC is a great tool.
It`s a free open source actionscript compiler that does a great job.
Check it out here.

You may also want to take a look at the quite busy mailing list.

Some days ago there was a discussion at the MTASC mailinglist. Someone wanted a tool that injects images
into am swf file. I quickly coded a ugly, dirty app that does exactly that. You can also specify a linkage id
so that you can use the image with attach movie. As i said that was done quick and dirty. I will add more
feautures soon. Any suggestions.

BTW it looks so horrible because it was my first attempt in using the Standard Widget Toolkit.
And it uses the genius libraries of flagstone. Check them out.

Creatively as i am i called my project BEX. BEX has several meaning:
– Benz experiments (name of my old site)
– Better Flex (not meant to be taken serious)
– Be Extensible
– Baby Flex
… or whatever you like. Just needed a name for my package structures!