I don't see SWFML and MXML having a convergent path, as they really
serve different purposes. SWFML is a low-level descriptor for a SWF
file, while MXML is providing a XUL-like application framework.
On the other hand, I could see them as complementary file formats. I
imagine its only a matter of time until someone creates an
Actionscript-based open-source MXML interpreter (or similar XML
format). It would probably make sense to use this in conjunction with a
SWFML based library descriptor format, thus keeping a pure-text
(opensource) codebase.
-D
Chris Velevitch wrote:
Although I haven't tried swfmill, I like to make the following
comments, observations and pose some questions.
swfmill uses SWFML, an XML dialect closely modelled after the SWF
format. To me, this is like creating an assembly language for SWF
because of the closeness to the SWF format. From the examples I've
seem, I would describe SWFML as a declarative presentation language.
And to that extent, is not too dissimilar to MXML although MXML is at
a higher level of abstraction than SWFML. Is it envisaged that swfmill
eventually handle MXML?
As I come to appreciate the expressive power of MXML to eliminate some
repetitive coding tasks (e.g. binding) through declarative
representation, I'm getting the impression that the Flash IDE is
'graphical' declarative presentation language, also closely modelled
after the SWF format. And because of it's closeness to SWF format,
there is also a fair amount repetitiveness in 'coding' tasks. Is it
envisaged that SWFML will have some higher level declarative elements
that eliminate the need to declare repetitive frame by frame
operations (e.g. tweening)?
Or am I way off the mark here, and all this better hand coded in
ActionScript instead of having some XML element and its attributes
used as a basis for automatically generating the code?
Chris
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