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(Locked) SwfPress - Easily Make Flash Wordpress Themes

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Reaper-Media moderator says

Conversation Moved:

The conversation for SwfPress has moved to this thread: http://activeden.net/forums/thread/swfpress-a-wordpress-theme-which-integrates-into-flash-tempaltes/34103

Original Post:

Hi Guys!

I’ve been working on a project for a while now, by reading the title, you probably can already tell what it is ;) Anyway here’s the breakdown:

What is it?

SwfPress is a framework that allows flash developers to very easily create flash-wordpress themes. The themes behave in the same manner as normal html wordpress themes, you upload the theme zip to the wordpress themes page, and activate… done!

Swfpress aims to hopefully bridge the gap between flash themes and wordpress, no longer will you be a flash OR wordpress developer, you will be a flash – wordpress developer.

How does it work

Swfpress generates XML files for the flash theme using the information that the buyer puts into his / her settings, and the content of the blog. As XML files are generated, and are configured to the exact format that the flash theme uses, in most cases, flash will not have to be opened once for you to create a SwfPress theme from an existing flash XML theme. The one thing that your theme has to be able to do is read the location of the MAIN xml file from flashvars that will be dynamicaly created from swfpress, but a lot of themes already support parsing the location of the main xml file via flashvars, and for themes that don’t offer this, it takes only minutes to implement this in your theme.

SwfPress generates a tailored options page for your theme that can be accessed under the appearance menu, the options page includes a system for the user to setup their menu structure, and to

How easy is it to implement?

And for the author? ... well the work is very easy… you only have to put your flash files in the dedicated content folder, edit a config.php file and create the xml.php files.

How will it be licensed?

The SwfPress project will follow similar licensing to greensock’s licensing system, it will be open source, but only under certain circumstances will people have to purchase a license to use it in their projects. There are many pros to this licensing system, but one you, as authors, will really appreciate is that you don’t have to make any commitment to fully test out the system, there are no deposits and no fees that are required for you to fully test out SwfPress, you can create a fully functional flash-wordpress theme before finally deciding whether or not you will purchase a license, if required.

The license has not yet been fully completed, and until it has been completed and publicly released, the entire project remains fully copyrighted by myself and protected with myows and not yet licensed for use or distribution.

What’s the current status of the project?

The first alpha version has been fully completed, if you are interested in private testing the alpha before the public beta releases, feel free to contact me via my profile page. I am particularly interested in authors here on ActiveDen who are currently selling XML Flash themes and wish to release WordPress versions of their themes along with their standard XML versions.

I still need to develop the swfpress website and payment system for the licenses / membership. Also the documentation will need to be created.

Can i see a demo?

Of course! :)

DigitalScience kindly let me use his Ultrasonic Flash XML Template for testing and demonstration purposes.

This XML Template has not been fully implemented into SwfPress, and this demonstration is limited, you will be able to see how changes to the options page can be made, but no changes will actually be made at all.

Here is a link to the options page for this demo: Clicky

Username: demo
Pass: pass

For those of you that want to know a bit more and take a look at the SwfPress configuration for this theme, the details are as follows:

Here is what the configuration file for this theme looks like: Clicky. It may look a bit daunting, but don’t worry, full documentation will be provided eventually. :P

And here is what the index.php XML Structure file looks like: Clicky. This also looks a bit complicated, but it isnt as hard as it looks, trust me ;)

Feedback

Please let me know your thoughts below, your opinions are very important to me, and feedback will help me develop SwfPress into something amazing :)

Remember if you would like to test out the SwfPress Alpha 1 version on your own theme, just let me know via my profile page.

Have Fun! :)

Sam

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CodingJack says

woohoo! :) Reaper you are a Flash God!

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Reaper-Media moderator says
woohoo! :) Reaper you are a Flash God!

cheers dude! :)

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ThemeProvince says
woohoo! :) Reaper you are a Flash God!
cheers dude! :)

Awesome!!!! This may turn into a new category here on AD.

I sent you an email.

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flashjunkie says

SwfPress…. sounds familiar, you knew i was working on a flash blog template with the same name… lame!

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Reaper-Media moderator says
SwfPress…. sounds familiar, you knew i was working on a flash blog template with the same name… lame!

Oh crap sorry… :?

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tsafi says

Ok in general people shift from flash to Wp do to simplistic and more friendly set up .

So in way you complicated things around combining this 2 option since the fla will probably need to be edit unless the app is 100 xml or php edit.

I am still not clear how you handle the load unload methods on a self page inner swf when using flash on your Wp, unless you are using AS2 , if so its a short living

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ParkerAndKent says

Nice,

but this must handle a full deep linking system and the flash files must be ready to work in that way, otherwise it wouldn’t be more than a cms for flash and not a real wp flash theme…

You should create a flash framework too on which to bulid the flash templates… if you wanna make this thing really really serious ;-)

Good job btw!

Parker

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Reaper-Media moderator says

Thanks for the comments guys!

@Parker: It does currently support deeplinking, but different people may have different ways of implementing it, I will try and allow for all implementations though! :-)

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DaniMun says

Sam, you’ve done an awesome job with this framework! Even if there’s still more to be done, it’s a very, very good start! Keep up the good work! 8-)

I’m looking forward to seeing the project successfully completed :)

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