[Mapserver-users] what to do w/ ming swf's?

[Charlton Purvis]

Thanks, Vincent.  I should have delved deeper into MapServer source on
my own, but after listening to your advice and looking at
http://ming.sourceforge.net/docs/index.php?mode=php, things seem clear.

At this point I guess it boils down to whether or not our users should
be forced to have a plug-in to view the flash animation.  GIF's
self-containment sure is compelling, but that comes at a cost of limited
features.  Same argument goes for the rosa applet download, too.

But there's no harm in checking it out!

Thanks again.

-----Original Message-----
From: Vincent Schut [mailto:schut at sarvision.com] 
Sent: Wednesday, April 30, 2003 5:13 AM
To: Charlton Purvis
Cc: Mapserver Users (E-mail)
Subject: Re: [Mapserver-users] what to do w/ ming swf's?

Charlton,

You could use the same library Mapserver is using to produce it's swf's:
ming. 
It's free, and you can use actionscript. It has a php component too. You
can 
simply program quite complex swf's with that. See the website for more 
details, api, etc.: http://ming.sourceforge.net/ , and the ming docs at 
php.net.
However, especially when using the php extension (it is a c library 
originally) be carefull and play around a bit with different versions,
cause 
not every version of ming works with every version of php. And it is
still in 
development, so not everything is working properly. My own experience:
though 
you might want to use ming-cvs (lots of errors fixed and some better 
functionality) I could not get it to work with php. The version I
currently 
have is ming 0.2a (the tar.gz from the website) which works in
combination 
with the ming extension that comes bundled with php 4.3.1. If you want
to use 
a newer ming, you might have to use it as a c library. Which is very
well 
possible, though, cause you can produce a static swf that dynamically
loads a 
mapserver produced swf on request, like Ryan Grant wrote. However, when
using 
this combination be carefull not to mix ming02.a and ming-cvs (you will
need 
them both I think, cause mapserver depends on 0.2a?).
However, with only 0.2a it's quite possible to produce nice mapserver 
interfaces.
You can look at an (very simple) example at 
http://www.sarvision.nl/mawas/mapserver/ms-mawas.php . It has nothing to
do 
with image sequences, but shows you a bit of the possibilities of ming
and 
building interfaces and integration/communication with mapserver.



On Tuesday 29 April 2003 21:00, Grant, Ryan wrote:
> As far as I know, there is no way to make ActionScript calls from php.
>
> So calls such as the one that I used are contained written using the
> Macromedia Flash author product. The project files are .fla, which
publish
> to .swf. I'm not currently aware of any free tools that let you work
with
> .fla files.
>
>
> To John Arthur:
> I haven't experimented with any layers containing labels yet, but
that's
> next on my list of things to try
>
> Regards,
>
> Ryan Grant
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Charlton Purvis [mailto:cpurvis at asg.sc.edu]
> Sent: Tuesday, April 29, 2003 11:44 AM
> To: Grant, Ryan
> Cc: Mapserver Users (E-mail)
> Subject: RE: [Mapserver-users] what to do w/ ming swf's?
>
>
> Thanks for your help, Grant.  But I'm afraid that I'm still in the
dark.
>
> I'd like to play w/ flash a bit more even though I'm pretty happy w/
> animated .gif's.
>
> But I'm missing how my .php and ActionScript are linked.  First of
all,
> it's not free, is it?  I'd like to think that I could make
ActionScript
> calls from w/i my .php, but that ain't so, is it?
>
> So where and in what type of file are calls like
>   var mapName = _level10.mapObj.name;
> ?
>
> Thanks again.
>
> Charlton

-- 
______________________________________
Vincent Schut (schut at sarvision.com)
Sarvision B.V.
Wageningen, The Netherlands
www.sarvision.com