As you may or may not have seen, a couple of designers have released some Central desktop wallpapers. Even cooler, is that some of them even released their Photoshop sources files so anyone can modify them:

• https://web.archive.org/web/20040104080036/http://www.ugoletti.com/blog/wallpapers.php
• http://www.ericd.net/
• https://web.archive.org/web/20040604023030/http://www.joshdura.com/archives/000276.php

Anyways, I haven’t had a contest since the “Spoof Mike Chambers” contest, so I figured I would hold another one. So, here is the deal, I am holding a contest for the coolest Central related desktop wallpaper. Here are the rules:

As Christian posted the other day, we have added some new tools to the Macromedia XML News Aggregator (MXNA). The new tools include:

• A Web Service API
• An ActionScript 2 Class to work with the Web Service API
• A Macromedia Central Class to work with the Web Service API
• OPML Feeds

You can find detailed information, as well as download the Flash libraries and examples from the Tools page at MXNA.

Here is a screenshot of the ActionScript 2 MXNAWebService API in the Flash Help Panel:

Community MX has posted an article on integrating the PrimalScript editor with Macromedia Flash. It includes a video tutorial on how to set up my FlashCommand command line compiler to compile directly from PrimalScript.

You can read the entire article here.

If you are looking for the install badge for the Central DevChat, you can find it here. This page / link will always have the latest info on the chat.

Status:

February 2, 2004 : I haven’t had a chance to work on it lately, although I have a ton of ideas of things to implement.

aSH (aka ActionScript Hero) has created and posted a beta SubEthaEdit syntax file for Macromedia Central (and ActionScript 2.0).

You can help test it out here.

One of the issues I ran into while building the MXNA WebService example app, was that both the ComboBox and DataGrid both broadcast “change” events. This meant that I could not have a separate function to listen for each event (and have the functions run within the scope of the feedView class).

There were two solutions to this. The first was to have a switch statement in my change event handler, that checked the eventObt.target property to see where the event came from. I could then dispatch the call as appropriate. Here is an example of what the event handler would look like:

Just a quick heads up. I have added an ATOM feed for the weblog. You can view it here.

You can find more information on ATOM here.

What are your favorite Flash based cartoons? I am addicted to StrongBad and pals, and need something new to feed my need in between StrongBad emails.

So, what are you favorite Flash based cartoons? Post links in the comments.

I am going to post the class files for the MXNA WebService App I put together over the weekend. I will post them as I add the comments.

I will eventually post all of the source, but I want to work out all of the kinks first.

The first class I am posting, MXNAAppController is the controller for the application. It handles all communication with the web services on the server, and contains a single view class, that contains most of the UI elements for the app.

Here is the next class from the MXNA Web Service sample app. This is the MXNAFeedView class, and is the main (and currently only) view class of the app.

It contains most of the UI elements for selecting and displaying categories and feeds.

You can also view the MXNAAppController class.

I will post the rest of the classes as I comment and finish them.

As usual, if you have any suggestions or questions, post them in the comments.