ForumsDevelopersFlash widgets and crossdomain.xml


Flash widgets and crossdomain.xml
Author Message
mkoeppen

Posted: Jul 11, 2008
Score: 0 Reference
Hi,

one of the (really) nice things on toodledo is, of course, the open API and the interfacing to many other web services or "representations". My concern is about a possible expansion of the API that would allow for flash widgets development as well.

Recent versions of the flash player lite (e.g. for mobile devices, the WII, or, what is the main reason for my post here, the chumby) have security restrictions on accessing external data (incl. urls). This is regulated by a file crossdomain.xml that has to be located in the root path of the server, which provides the data to the widget.

So, for making a flash widget, which can access the toodledo API, such a file would also be needed to be installed in the root path of toodledo.com, and also allowing access from anyone. I know that there might be clear and understandable concerns about such a solution (but seems twitter, flickr, yahoo etc. do it like this)...

So, my question, is there any plan for such a flash development support, or are there any general objections against it?

(actually it should be noted that the problem can also be handled by setting up one's own proxy, but this is a rather inconvenient approach).

Thanks
Mario
Jake

Toodledo Founder
Posted: Jul 11, 2008
Score: 0 Reference
We haven't really thought about it too much yet since we aren't flash developers, but if you, or anyone else, wants to build a flash application, we would be happy to work with you to find a solution that works for both of us.
mkoeppen

Posted: Jul 12, 2008
Score: 0 Reference
Actually it does not need much to promote the development of flash applications that can access toodledo data - it is essentially the above-named file crossdomain.xml. Some examples of websites that have kind of "open" content access for flash:

http://api.flickr.com/crossdomain.xml
http://search.yahooapis.com/crossdomain.xml
http://www.jabber.org/crossdomain.xml

Other sites are more dedicated to special domains:

http://www.twitter.com/crossdomain.xml

There are some security issues, of course. I think they are not much higher than for the general API provided by toodledo for example - but it has to be taken into account.

So, my question is very simple: would it be it possible to provide a file

http://www.toodledo.com/crossdomain.xml

like the above, or at least with some specific entries like

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<!DOCTYPE cross-domain-policy SYSTEM "http://www.macromedia.com/xml/dtds/cross-domain-policy.dtd">
<cross-domain-policy>
<allow-access-from domain="*.chumby.com" />
</cross-domain-policy>

Just to mention, I am not a professional flash developper, but making a widget to display toodledo data does not seem very hard, thanks to the convenient API.

More detailed info of Adobe about this:

http://livedocs.adobe.com/flash/8/main/wwhelp/wwhimpl/common/html/wwhelp.htm?context=LiveDocs_Parts& file=00001621.html
Jake

Toodledo Founder
Posted: Jul 14, 2008
Score: 0 Reference
We will research the "open" approach more, but in the meantime, we would be happy to make a crossdomain file with specific entries for any developer who wants to make a flash application. Just let us know and we will work with you to get it up and running.
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