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chumbysphere forum → Flash/Widget → Re-uploading "recent widgets" swf to the chumby page breaks it
Simply re uploading the recent widgets example widget doesnt work. It will load locally, but not on the chumby page.
The rss feed wont display
did i break it or save it incorrectly?
Also. Using the regular chumby RSS reader, i can load up a specific RSS feed and it displays fine in the virtual chumby etc.... but when i publish that feed in my widget, or even the RSS reader, it wont work. Any Ideas?
I think i'm breaking it somehow when i upload it maybe?
Please check the Publish Settings - are they set to Flash 8 or earlier?
Yup. and action script 2
It tries to load the feed. On the status bar of my browser it says "trying to load....blah blah blah"...
but i guess it just times out.
How does your generic RSS feeder work? Is this a case where i need to do something with the crossview xml thingy?
The best way to debug this is to ssh into the device, restart the Control Panel, and look at the output - you should see why it's failing.
Yes, you will probably need a crossdomain file on your server, or bounce the feed off of some other service such as Yahoo Pipes.
So your generic rss reader works with my rss feed cause you have a crossdomain.xml on your site?
How come i can't simply re upload your example "recent widgets" widget and have it work?
I dont understand when i need to have one of those crossdomain files and when i dont.
Does the "generic rss reader" push the rss feed through something like yahoo pipes?
Oh and i dont have a chumby yet, just waiting for the new one to come out first, thought i might make a few widgets while i wait.
*EDIT*
Ok i did lots of research and found out how to create a proxy server and setup PHP and now my widget loads data properly when i hit F12 in flash.
I'm still curious to the answers above, btw.
But here's my next 2 conundrums.
When i upload my widget to the website, it wont load the info, it works locally, and it works if i try it on another machine online, but not on the chumby website. Is there something else i need to add or fix?
Also Part of my script involves calling a website with authentication. Will the chumby connect without problems to a site if the URL is like this http://username:password@www.mysite.com
???
I'm not exactly sure how the "generic RSS" widget does it, but we do have a proxy that we operate for some of our own internally-created widgets, and most third parties that want to use feeds but can't supply a crossdomain files typically use Yahoo Pipes.
It's quite likely the URL used for the "recent widgets" has been changed since that sample code was uploaded - I'll take a look and maybe we'll update the source code if so. It's really just meant to be an example, and probably doesn't exactly match the widget in the catalog, since it's been enhanced several times. However, many people have used that code for their own feeds.
I believe the username/password thing has to be done another way (addRequestHeader() or something like that).
For what it's worth, I built a number of widgets before I had an actual chumby device and it was a pretty big waste of time.
You're also going to run into issues like the ones you're mentioning often, especially between web and chumby versions.
I should also point out that the answers you're looking for are either here in the forums or the wiki.
cheers.
I think cbreeze is right - there's no substitute for having a real chumby when doing widget development.
Ok perhaps i'll hold off.
I'm having a problem with my xml data showing fine on the thumbnail preview of my widget, but not once its in a virtual chumby, although clicking the links work, so i know its loading the data correctly, just not displaying it. I'm assuming this is one of those situations where having an actual unit might be better.
One thing to note on "virtual chumby" - it's just a Flash movie that uses MovieClipLoader to load the widgets into an empty MovieClip. That means that widgets that assume they're running from the main timeline will often fail.
On the actual device, widgets get their own fresh new player and run standalone.
Is there a work around, so that they will work on both the virtual one, and the actual unit?
also, im assuming that the thumbnail widget preview is just a direct link to the .swf instead of an actual virtual chumby?
There's no real workaround except to write your widget so it works properly when loaded into another movie. Usually that's not too hard (look for references to _level0, _global, and _root, or preloaders).
The chumby site acknowledges that this is sometimes not possible by allowing the author to indicate that the widget will not work in virtual chumby.
Yes, the "thumbnail" widget (we call it the "preview" as opposed to the JPEG thumbnail) is just the movie running directly in the page.
Thanks for all of the in-site duane. one last question, is it possible to use separate actionscript class files along with chumby widgets?
I assume you're talking about SWC files.
Once a SWF has been published, any SWC files it references are pulled in, so there's no reason to publish them alongside the SWF.
If you're talking about some other method to keep compiled classes separate and loaded at runtime, then I'm not familiar with that, and to my knowledge, Flash Lite does not support such a mechanism.
For what it's worth, you can poll the _root._chumby_user_name variable and if it comes back "undefined" you can be pretty sure that you are not running on an actual chumby device, and make your decisions accordingly.
Hope that helps.
Cheers.
Actually, there's a chance that that the "_chumby_user_name" variable may work on the "virtual chumby" in the future since a virtual chumby can be tied to a specific user.
Looking for "_chumby_chumby_name" would probably be a better choice since there is no actual physical chumby involved.
Yeah, what Duane said. 
chumbysphere forum → Flash/Widget → Re-uploading "recent widgets" swf to the chumby page breaks it
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