• A new home at github.
• A RubyGem release. Thus, SWX Ruby is no longer tied to Rails. In fact, SWX Ruby is developing a bit of a crush on Merb.
• A lighter Rails plugin that integrates with the new gem.
• RDOC Documentation with instructions for Gem usage and the new Rails plugin setup.

With all this refactoring, there’s a good chance something got broken. Please swing by the Google Group if you track down any issues.

What’s there at present should give you a good overview of what it’s like to use SWX Ruby in your very own Rails application.

As I continue to interact with users on the mailing list, I hope to get a clearer idea of the places where better documentation is needed.

Feel free to leave any suggestions here in the comments. And, as always, thanks for using SWX Ruby!

Well aware that Rails isn’t the only kid on the block, I’m putting a gem distribution at the top of my list for the next release. Stay tuned…

script/plugin install http://swxruby.rubyforge.org/svn/tags/0.5/swx_on_rails

Simply call render :swx => ‘my swx data’ from a Rails controller and SWX Ruby will send back a SWX file containing ‘my swx data’.

The SWX Ruby plugin also registers a MIME type for SWX files. This enables you to serve up your SWX data in RESTful style:

# in config/routes.rb
ActionController::Routing::Routes.draw do |map|
  map.connect '/restful.:format', :controller => 'Restful'
  map.connect '/restful', :controller => 'Restful'
end

# in app/controllers/restful_controller.rb
class RestfulController
  def index
    respond_to do |format|
      format.html { render :text => 'not a swx request' }
      format.swx  { render :swx => 'a swx request' }
    end
  end
end

With the preceding code in your app, pull up http://localhost:3000/restful in a browser. You’ll see ‘not a swx request’. Then open Flash, place an empty MovieClip on stage with an instance name of ‘loader’, and place the following ActionScript in frame 1:

loader.debug = true;

loader.loadMovie("http://localhost:3000/restful.swx", "GET");

function onEnterFrame() {
 trace(loader.result);
}

Preview the Flash movie and the Output panel will begin tracing ‘a swx request’.

So when can I play with this?

This is checked in to trunk right now. script/plugin install http://swxruby.rubyforge.org/svn/trunk/

I’m planning on making a beta release of SWX Ruby by the end of the month which will include this new feature.

Note: In my recent testing, the install.rb script doesn’t execute when installing the plugin from trunk. Please let me know if you exeperience this issue and I’ll look into it further. A temporary workaround is to execute the install script manually:

$ script/plugin install http://swxruby.rubyforge.org/svn/trunk/
$ ruby vendor/plugins/trunk/install.rb


Update

This functionality is now available in the 0.5 release.

Take it for a spin and let me know if anything breaks.

script/plugin install http://swxruby.rubyforge.org/svn/tags/0.1.1/swx_on_rails

Next on my list of things to do is Flash 9 support (SWX Ruby currently assembles Flash 6 compatible SWFs). Aral plans on adding Flash 9 support to SWX PHP in the near future, and SWX Ruby won’t be far behind.

If you are planning on using SWX Ruby for your future projects, do be sure to drop by the SWX Ruby Google Group and say hello.