[Typo3-dev] Typo3 as Flash CMS

[Andreas Borg]

Hi Dan,

> Basically one wants a couple of relevant functions to be accessible via
> flash remoting (maybe like get_tree(), get_content_element(), ...).

Yeah these 3 functions might suffice,
get_tree()
get_page_content()
get_page_template()

So the get_tree would return some array of page ids and titles etc,
get_page_content would get an array of content elements
and get_page_template would return a reference to the
swf (or already loaded movieclip component?) that
would know how to render that.

It would be much cleaner (although you would loose
the bonus of xml being available for other client
types). We like clean!

But the issue about how and where to deal with the display
layer, or page template or whatever you wish to call it, remains
I think. Normally in Typo3 you specify a template for a whole site
or per page - and the templates arent content elements. For flash you
would need something similar but maybe you need to make it
into a content type and require that each page for flash would
need a flash template file (which would still be just another swf,
but one that would know what to do with the other content).
If one choose that approach one might not even need the
get_page_template function because each get_page_content
call would return reference to a template.

Sorry if Im just thinking out loud but I do think that typo3 has
the potential of being a great CMS for flash and that the differences
between html and flash have architectural implications.
One of the many possibilities for flash in this context is
that you could make an extention with which you could design
the layout of you content on the fly, ie. you could upload some
new content and then go to some design module and draw
squares and specify what content should go where. The result
could be stored as an xml file associated with that content, so
when flash got that page it would know how to lay it out.
The beauty being that as an end-user you wouldnt be bound by
a set of prefabricated templates the typo3 designer made
but you could create new pages as you pleased.
Doesnt that excite someone out there?

Dan wrote:
> It should not be too hard a task to achieve this. If you want to try
> coding it, I can at least give you some amfphp example code (and some
> pitfalls).

I would love to try and Id be eager to take you up on your offer.
First though I think I need some clarity on how to deal with
displaying the data, whether it is transmitted via xml or remoting.
In your project, did flash already know what to expect so if
you wanted to add new content types you would need to
update the flash frontend correspondingly? Ie, was the flash
files and especially the part of flash that would interpret and
display the data ever part of the backend?

Thanks
/borg