Below is the list of variables sent with a Ping.fm custom url post:

• method – The method of the message being sent (blog, microblog, status).
• title – If method is “blog” then this contains the blog’s title.
• message – The posted message content.
• location – Any location updates posted with the message.  This is plaintext, verbatim from the posting interface.
• media – If media is posted, this will contain a URL to the media file.
• raw_message – If media is posted, this will contain the posted message WITHOUT the hosted media link (i.e. http://ping.fm/p/12345).
• trigger – If you post a message with a custom trigger (http://ping.fm/triggers/), it will show here.

All that was needed for my script was to use the $_POST[] array to get the variables from the posted messages and use those variables in my script to insert the data into a MySQL database for later use.  Now I can post news stories, status updates, and blog posts right to my website without having to log in to the administrative backend of my site.  The apps I use to post are Meping on the desktop and Blackping on my Blackberry (requires custom trigger to post to custom url).

I’ve also thought of several other possibilities with the custom URL ping.fm functionality, such as HTML email marketing, which would normally be difficult to accomplish from a mobile phone, for example.  All you would need to do to accomplish this is put the HTML template in your server-side script along with queries to your customer database and then include some key words in your pinged message that the script can parse (i.e. the location variable can contain which HTML template to use and some filter keywords for which customers to email).

All it takes is a little imagination, and the possibilities are almost endless with the ping.fm custom URL functionality.  For now, I’m just happy that I can post messages to my website…  Tomorrow, pinging NASA servers to send rockets into space.

Although I have not yet done anything major with Flex and AIR, I have programmed a few small AIR applications, including a shipping cost estimator that is used by the Accounting department.

The application is very simple as you can see. It contains a form that asks for three pieces of information: the origination zip code, the destination zip code, and the weight of the package. When the form is submitted, it sends an RPC request to the company web server, where a PHP script queries a database that contains zip code information (including distance between zip codes) and gets back calculated shipping estimates for several different shipping services.

This application has come in handy when waiting for direct shipping charges from a manufacturer while the customer needs an invoice ASAP with the shipping charges included in the invoice.

This small application is nothing like the fire truck sales flow application I will be creating, but it is something I can build upon. I am hoping that my foundation in Actionscript 2 and Flash will help me to learn AS 3 and Flex quickly. I say BRING IT ON!!

Next, I created a dynamic XML file using PHP to get the data for use in Flash. The following code is the PHP code for the dynamic XML file:

<?php
header('Content-Type: text/xml; charset=utf-8');
echo '<?xml version="1.0" encoding="iso-8859-1"?>';

/*
"TransTime" = Seconds between each image transition
"SlideOrder" = How images are displayed. Can be either "sequential" or "random"
"FadeTime" = velocity of image crossfade. Larger number for faster fades
"Loop" = Set to "yes" or "no" for looping in sequential mode
"Xpos" = X position of all loaded clips set to 0
"Ypos" = Y position of all loaded clips set to 0
*/

echo '<gallery TransTime="4" SlideOrder="random" FadeTime="3" Loop="yes" Xpos="0" Ypos="0">';

require_once( '../../classes/FamilyPhotos.php' );

$mySlideShow = new FamilyPhotos;

$ssquery = "
   SELECT
   SsPic_ID,
   SsPic_Filename,
   SsPic_Desc
   FROM T_SlideshowPics
   ORDER BY SsPic_ID DESC;";
$ssrs = mysqli_query($mySlideShow->mysqli, $ssquery );
while( $ssrow = mysqli_fetch_assoc($ssrs)) {

echo<image path="' . $ssrow["SsPic_Filename"] . '" />';

}

echo '</gallery>';
?>


Next I created a Flash file that loads the XML from the previous PHP file and parses the XML to get the image data. The Flash file then loads the images and adds transition effects to each image with the following Actionscript code:


function parse(success)
 {
  if (success)
  {
   imageArray = new Array();
   var root = this.firstChild;
   _global.numPause = Number(this.firstChild.attributes.TransTime * 1000);
   _global.SlideOrder = this.firstChild.attributes.SlideOrder;
   _global.Loop = this.firstChild.attributes.Loop;
   _global.FadeTime = Number(this.firstChild.attributes.FadeTime);
   _global.Xpos = Number(this.firstChild.attributes.Xpos);
   _global.Ypos = Number(this.firstChild.attributes.Ypos);
   var imageNode = root.lastChild;
   var s = 0;
   while (imageNode.nodeName != null)
   {
    imageData = new Object();
    imageData.path = imageNode.attributes.path;
    imageArray[s] = imageData;
    imageNode = imageNode.previousSibling;
    ++s;
   }
   container_mc._x = _global.Xpos;
   container_mc._y = _global.Ypos;
   imageArray.reverse();
   imageGen(imageArray);
   return;
  }
 }
function swapPlace(clip, num)
{
  eval(clip).swapDepths(eval("container_mc.loader" + num + "_mc"));
}
function loadImages(data, num)
{
  if (i == undefined || i == 2)
  {
    i = 2;
   createLoader(i, data, num);
   i = 1;
   return;
  }
  if (i == 1)
  {
   createLoader(i, data, num);
   i = 2;
  }
}
function createLoader(i, data, num)
{
  thisLoader = eval("container_mc.loader" + i + "_mc");
  thisLoader._alpha = 0;
  thisLoader.loadMovie(data[num].path);
  watcher_mc.onEnterFrame = function ()
  {
   var picLoaded = thisLoader.getBytesLoaded();
   var picBytes = thisLoader.getBytesTotal();
   if (isNaN(picBytes) || picBytes < 4)
   {
    return undefined;
   }
   if (picLoaded / picBytes >= 1)
   {
    swapPlace("container_mc.loader2_mc", 1);
    thisLoader.alpha(_global.FadeTime, 100);
    TransTimeInterval = setInterval(imageGen, _global.numPause, data);
    delete this.onEnterFrame;
   }
  };
}
function imageGen(data)
{
  if (_global.SlideOrder == "random")
  {
   while (randomNum == randomNumLast)
   {
    randomNum = Math.floor(Math.random() * data.length);
   }
   loadImages(data, randomNum);
   randomNumLast = randomNum;
 }
 else
 {
   if (_global.SlideOrder == "sequential")
   {
    if (p == undefined || p == data.length && _global.Loop == "yes")
    {
     p = 0;
    }
    loadImages(data, p);
    ++p;
   }
  }
  clearInterval(TransTimeInterval);
}
var randomNum = 0;
var randomNumLast = 0;
var container_mc = this.createEmptyMovieClip("container", 0);
container_mc.createEmptyMovieClip("loader1_mc", 2);
container_mc.createEmptyMovieClip("loader2_mc", 1);
this.createEmptyMovieClip("watcher_mc", 100);
image_changer_xml = new XML();
image_changer_xml.ignoreWhite = true;
image_changer_xml.onLoad = parse;
image_changer_xml.load("includes/flash/imagechanger/image_changer_addon.php");
stop();

MovieClip.prototype.alpha = function (vel, to)
{
  this.vel = vel;
  this.to = to;
  this.alpha_init = this._alpha;
  this.onEnterFrame = function ()
  {
  updateAfterEvent();
  if (this.to != undefined && this.vel != undefined)
  {
   if (this.to > this.alpha_init)
   {
    if (this._alpha <= 100)
    {
     this._alpha = this._alpha + this.vel;
    }
    else
    {
     this.onEnterFrame = null;
    }
   }
  else
  {
   if (this._alpha > this.to)
   {
    this._alpha = this._alpha - this.vel;
   }
   else
   {
    this.onEnterFrame = null;
   }
  }
  return;
  }
 };
};


The image slideshow looks great! My next post will be about a flash video player I have been working on to play videos on the site as well as search the database for relevant videos…

First, as part of a backend CMS, I created a form that submits the status update via PHP to a MySQL database. Then I wrote a PHP class that includes a method to query the database for the most recent status update and another method that calls a MySQL stored procedure to get the time of that status update (i.e. “a few minutes ago”, “32 minutes ago”, “5 days ago”, etc.). The following is the code for the MySQL stored procedure that gets the time of the user’s most recent status update:

DROP FUNCTION IF EXISTS `my_DB`.`getStatusTime`;

DELIMITER $$
/*!50003 SET @TEMP_SQL_MODE=@@SQL_MODE, SQL_MODE=” */ $$
CREATE FUNCTION `my_DB`.`getStatusTime`(User VARCHAR(25)) RETURNS VARCHAR(25)
BEGIN
DECLARE TodaysDate TIMESTAMP;
DECLARE StatusDate TIMESTAMP;
DECLARE TimeDifference TIME;
DECLARE Status_Time VARCHAR(25);

SELECT NOW()
INTO TodaysDate;

SELECT s.Stat_Updated
INTO StatusDate
FROM T_Status s
INNER JOIN T_Profile p ON p.Profile_ID=s.Stat_Who
WHERE p.Pr_Name_First=User
ORDER BY s.Stat_Updated desc
LIMIT 1;

SELECT TIMEDIFF( TodaysDate, StatusDate )
INTO TimeDifference;

SELECT TIMEDIFF( MAKETIME(47,59,59), TimeOfStatus )
INTO YesterdayTimeDifference;

/*////// Find the time of status update formatted as a string /////// */
IF HOUR(TimeOfStatus) < 12 THEN SET TimeOfStatusString = CONCAT( ‘ at ‘, HOUR(TimeOfStatus), ‘:‘, MINUTE(TimeOfStatus), ‘ AM‘ );
ELSEIF HOUR(TimeOfStatus) < 13 THEN SET TimeOfStatusString = CONCAT( ‘ at ‘, HOUR(TimeOfStatus), ‘:‘, MINUTE(TimeOfStatus), ‘ PM‘ );
ELSE SET TimeOfStatusString = CONCAT( ‘ at ‘, HOUR( DATE_SUB( StatusDate, INTERVAL 12 HOUR ) ), ‘:‘, MINUTE(TimeOfStatus), ‘ PM‘ );
END IF;

/*////// Find the amount of time since most recent status update /////// */
/*
Status options:
‘a moment ago’
‘less than 1 minute ago’
‘1 minute ago’
‘{n} minutes ago’
‘1 hour ago’
‘{n} hours ago’
‘yesterday at {time}’
‘on {day} at {time}’
‘last {day} at {time}’
‘on {date} at {time}’
*/
IF HOUR( TimeDifference ) < 1 AND MINUTE( TimeDifference ) < 1 THEN SET Status_Time = CONCAT( SECOND( TimeDifference ), ‘ seconds ago‘ );
ELSEIF HOUR( TimeDifference ) < 1 AND MINUTE( TimeDifference ) < 2 THEN SET Status_Time = ‘1 minute ago‘;
ELSEIF HOUR( TimeDifference ) < 1 AND MINUTE( TimeDifference ) < 60 THEN SET Status_Time = CONCAT( MINUTE( TimeDifference ), ‘ minutes ago‘ );
ELSEIF HOUR( TimeDifference ) < 2 THEN SET Status_Time = ‘1 hour ago‘;
ELSEIF HOUR( TimeDifference ) < 24 THEN SET Status_Time = CONCAT( HOUR( TimeDifference ), ‘ hours ago‘ );
ELSEIF HOUR( TimeDifference ) < ( YesterdayTimeDifference ) AND MINUTE( TimeDifference ) < MINUTE( YesterdayTimeDifference ) AND SECOND( TimeDifference ) < SECOND( YesterdayTimeDifference ) THEN SET Status_Time = CONCAT( ‘yesterday‘, TimeOfStatusString );
ELSEIF HOUR( TimeDifference ) < 144 THEN SET Status_Time = CONCAT( ‘on ‘, DAYNAME( StatusDate ), TimeOfStatusString );
ELSEIF HOUR( TimeDifference ) < 168 THEN SET Status_Time = CONCAT( ‘last ‘, DAYNAME( StatusDate ), TimeOfStatusString );
ELSE SET Status_Time = CONCAT( ‘on ‘, MONTHNAME( StatusDate ), ‘ ‘, DAY( StatusDate ), TimeOfStatusString );
END IF;

RETURN Status_Time;
END $$
/*!50003 SET SESSION SQL_MODE=@TEMP_SQL_MODE */ $$

DELIMITER ;

The script works like a charm! My next project on this site is to create a Flash image slideshow where the images can be managed from the backend…