Will somebody do a tute about XML, please? I’m tired of people bragging about their XML menu, I need some demystification here 
pom :asian:
I feel unloved…:*( Nobody knows XML?
I am with you Ilyas. I made an XML menu, but I CANNOT get it to drop down (it is a drop down menu type thing). It is statically stuck down.
The only person I know of that knows how to parse XML in Flash is david. So here we go…
DAVID…WE NEED HELP! Can you write us a tutorial!?!
<B>PS: demystification - clearing up the mystery of something</B>
<FONT FACE=“verdana” STYLE=“font-size:10 px”>I had a really good english teacher I suppose</FONT>
Hey, thanks for the support, Lost
And concerning demystification, I knew it existed, for once. No cutting.
pom 
Hey Ilyas,
Hopefully david will be able to help us. I know he is still learning the parsing of XML into flash, but it will definitely be a big help if he could write any kind of tutorial on XML and Flash.
I sure hope he can give a hand. I have zip idea what XML is or does, but everything is getting all excited about it, and I can’t find a good tutorial about XML and Flash. Grr!!
Same boat here. The only tutorial I found was one at moocks site and that was only about whitespace stripping your XML in Flash (removing extra space or something like that). That doesn’t teach you ANYTHING about how to parse it into Flash though. I got my XML to parse, but now I cant get it to function correctly…haha.
lol… sorry guys… I hardly ever make it into this section. Been busy busy… but if I have time to write up four full song lyrics I guess I have time to check all the other sections.
(I anyone ever wants me to look at a particular thread, just send me a PM with a link to the post. I’ll come a running.)
XML… well, as I said in my PM to Pom (that’s really quite funny… pmtopom) xml is a pretty extensive thing, and I’m only scratching the surface of it now. I’m not sure if I can help with a menu that’s stuck down. That doesn’t sound like an xml parsing problem at all… sounds like some sort of a/s problem. As for xml itself… I’ll see what I can write up this week to at least explain what I know on the subject.
Well I know it isn’t the parsing, the parsing works great, but I have no clue how to change the AS so that the menu can be “pulled up” and “dropped down”. I was really just using that as an example to show that Ilyas is not the only one interested in figuring this stuff out
I eagerly await your tutorial=)
if people are still interested in an xml tutorial - I will go about doing one- what in particular with XML - parsing?
For Ilyas I believe it is XML
For me it is parsing it into Flash. Ilyas will need to know that eventually too though.
I would greatly appreciate any amount of tutorials and help I can get on the subject. I am sure Ilyas feels the same, but I can’t speak for him.
Ditto (is that what you’re supposed to say? ) I’d definitely appreciate anything you could write about XML, eve though I have eventually found some ressources. And don’t ask me what you should talk about, I wouldn’t know
And one more thing, David/Upu is writing something on the subject, so maybe you 2 should discuss it a tiny bit.
Thanks again.
pom :asian:
Very nice link. I will check that out. And good idea about colaborating with david on XML tutorials.
PS: Ilays, ditto is what to say when you mean “same here”. So yes, you used it right.
heh david – if need some help with the XML tutorial or what not - let me know!
I’m more than happy to help with it.
That’s mighty kind of you. I’ll be sure to pass it to you first for editorial review. That would be very very helpful. There are still so many things I’m confused on.
Question. Have you been doing a lot of work with xml in Flash?
if so I have some questions already.
A) Do you make two functions one for striping the white from an xml and another for sorting out the data for display?
B) How big is too big for an XML file. I’m having a hard time distinguishing exactly how long they take to load from the server.
C) I know that the really large ones can cause a total freeze for quite a few seconds while your parsing the data. Are there any tips for reducing this freeze time?
Those I think are my big three questions right now.
Hey david,
If it helps at all, I did 2 functions. 1 for whitespace stripping and 1 for sorting the data. But what do I know…haha:)
heh david
well - i guess that the answers depend mostly on what version of Flash you are using.
The Flash MX XML parser is a trillion times faster than that of Flash 5. No comparison. In flash 5 you need to use XMLNitro - in MX- there is no need. So the worry about huge XML files is not a big of a concern with MX-- Ireally have no response to how big is too big- I guess that comes down to testing and determing how long is too long and then breaking the XML into digestable chunks.
If coding in Flash 5- i use a handy strip white space function from Colin Moock (www.moock.org). In MX-its a simple command(
theXMLOBJ.ignoreWhite = true;)
Then I add a function that overrides the onload function - it parses the data and makes objects out of them - adding these objects to an array or series of arrays- however I need to do it - so that they are easily referenced.
I have done some stuff in XML- I really try to integrate it somehow into most of the stuff I do. I recently did a quiz that got its content, answers, question types, navigation structure from parsing an XML file.
XML is an investment- it takes a bit to get going with it - but once you do - it adds incredible flexibility.
I think I answered all the questions?!
AND HEH - lost in beta- I gave up on my stupid html display prob- I ended up going with the listbox component instead and liked the results- thanks for your help!
Cheers.
Sorry I couldn’t help more with that problem. Hmm, I was hoping using a textbox format would fix it. Since all other methods didn’t seem to work. I am glad you came out with a result that you liked though. I would have posted to that thread for months if I had to just so I can help you fix the problem (I posted in one thread that got up to I think 70 some posts trying to fix a problem, it was a thread where all the posts up until right before the end were just me and the other guy).
Back on subject, good info:)
ok… what I’ve been doing so far is using a single function first on the object to stripwhite (colin moocks as well. It’s a great piece of code) then I’d use a second function (modified from the stripwhite function) which takes the data and creates movie clips or whatever to display the data.
I guess you feel it’s worth populating an array with the information, but I’m not sure why… yet.
It is possible that because I’ve been using Flash5.0 I’ve been forced to keep my xml files fairly small in size. This in turn dictates that I have a number of xml objects in any project at the same time, and that means that though my freeze time is low (I didn’t even know about that program you mentioned.) I can retreive the info as I need it, from sort of arrays… (since XML node trees do share some of the same properties.)
I could see however… that I would be going through the xml less times if I took each branch and populated separate arrays with that information… I’ guess I’ve got some playing around to do still.
I would say, from what you’ve said so far, that YOU should be writing a tutorial on the subject… at least as far as MX goes. All I can give them is 5.0 code which A) may or may not work in MX, and B) is slower when it does work. What do you say… would you give it a go?
sure thing! -
The XML nitro is a routine developed by Branden Hall of Figleaf :
you can get it here:http://chattyfig.figleaf.com/
select XML nitro on the right hand side.
You should see a big difference!
