An old schoolmate found me via Technorati, Google and Flickr. Thanks WWW for indexing/syndicating/storing all relevant (and irrelevant) data (blog posts, feeds, photographs, comments, mailing-list archives etc) about me.
I kept wondering how my friend got my primary email-id? it’s not trivial but determined-person can know it. I am lately very concerned about privacy.
Technorati tags: www, google, technorati, flickr, privacy, schoolmate
--- layout: post status: publish published: true title: ‘VIM: ActionScript and MXML syntax files’ author: display_name: Abdul Qabiz login: admin email: [email protected] url: http://www.abdulqabiz.com author_login: admin author_email: [email protected] author_url: http://www.abdulqabiz.com wordpress_id: 339 wordpress_url: http://www.abdulqabiz.com/wordpress/?p=339 date: ‘2007-10-12 12:59:41 +0530’ date_gmt: ‘2007-10-12 07:29:41 +0530’ categories: - Flash and Actionscript - Macromedia Flex tags: [] comments: - id: 1725 author: DLikhten author_email: [email protected] author_url: ‘’ date: ‘2007-11-16 02:30:14 +0530’ date_gmt: ‘2007-11-15 21:00:14 +0530’ content: | You rule!!!! This is great! Now all we need is to modify eclipse java editor to take in syntax from actionscript and eclipse jsp editor to handle MXML (after all it is just like JSPs) and we got a semi-working ide :) - id: 1726 author: Devon author_email: [email protected] author_url: ‘’ date: ‘2007-11-21 06:27:09 +0530’ date_gmt: ‘2007-11-21 00:57:09 +0530’ content: | Quick suggestion on implementing them: Add this to your $HOME/.vimrc: au BufNewFile,BufRead *.mxml set filetype=mxml au BufNewFile,BufRead *.as set filetype=actionscript The instructions that are linked to don’t include the mxml line and they don’t work when you’re creating a new file! - id: 1727 author: Geoff author_email: [email protected] author_url: http://www.geoffreymoller.com date: ‘2007-12-01 01:22:40 +0530’ date_gmt: ‘2007-11-30 19:52:40 +0530’ content: | Incredibly helpful - thanks! For Actionscript 3 within an mxml file script tag, the syntax coloring is different than actionscript in a standalone *.as file - is that your intention (or maybe my environment is messed up :) ? - id: 1728 author: Martin author_email: [email protected] author_url: ‘’ date: ‘2008-08-20 00:20:44 +0530’ date_gmt: ‘2008-08-19 18:50:44 +0530’ content: ‘Is there a way to enable/add folding on the actionscript syntax file? ‘ - id: 1729 author: Burteen author_email: [email protected] author_url: ‘’ date: ‘2008-12-22 10:29:59 +0530’ date_gmt: ‘2008-12-22 04:59:59 +0530’ content: ‘This is awesome ‘ - id: 1730 author: vuthecuong author_email: [email protected] author_url: ‘’ date: ‘2009-01-05 08:44:40 +0530’ date_gmt: ‘2009-01-05 03:14:40 +0530’ content: | It works very well in mxml file with embedded actionscript functions. However, when I indent above mxml file (gg=G), the mxml parts indented well but the actionscript funtions code did not being indented at all. Does anyone as same as me? If indent well, this is perfect :) Could anyone tell me how can I indent mxml file with embedded actionscript code? thanks and regards - id: 1731 author: Abdul Qabiz author_email: [email protected] author_url: http://abdulqabiz.com/blog/ date: ‘2009-03-07 02:03:57 +0530’ date_gmt: ‘2009-03-06 20:33:57 +0530’ content: | \@vuthecuong I need to check that and probably fix it. \@Martin I would check that too. Thanks for update. -abdul - id: 4363 author: Sam Wilson author_email: [email protected] author_url: http://www.storypixel.com date: ‘2009-07-07 18:21:32 +0530’ date_gmt: ‘2009-07-07 13:21:32 +0530’ content: Very nice stuff, I’m going to try to implement these files today. My dream would be a vim plugin that matches Eclipse (FDT). There is a Ruby vim plugin that allows the functionality of clicking on a class name and doing some key command and you go to that class’s definition. That’s exactly what I’d like to see here, maybe I can learn enough to make that happen. - id: 4372 author: Abdul Qabiz author_email: [email protected] author_url: http://www.abdulqabiz.com date: ‘2009-07-07 23:10:17 +0530’ date_gmt: ‘2009-07-07 18:10:17 +0530’ content: |- \@Sam Thanks. I know, I also wanted a VIM plugin for Eclipse and realized there are couple of such plugins, not really stable and usable. Then I realized, Eclipse is different thing and while using existing VIM plugins for Eclipse, my experience has not been good. It’s like trying to fit something meant for different world into something else. However, I would see when one appears. -abdul - id: 6640 author: queria author_email: [email protected] author_url: ‘’ date: ‘2009-08-25 13:14:08 +0530’ date_gmt: ‘2009-08-25 08:14:08 +0530’ content: “Hi Abdul.\r\n\r\nIts great ... thanks very much!\r\n\r\nQ.” - id: 7258 author: morch author_email: [email protected] author_url: ‘’ date: ‘2009-09-23 03:27:00 +0530’ date_gmt: ‘2009-09-22 21:57:00 +0530’ content: “Patch: Let syntax files be stored in ~/.vim/syntax\n\nI’m sure if I put the syntax files under /usr/share they’d work fine. But when I put them under ~/.vim/syntax, I got this error:\n\nError detected while processing /home/pvm/.vim/syntax/mxml.vim:\nline \ 302:\nE484: Can’t open file /home/pvm/.vim/syntax/dtd.vim\n\nThis patch fixed that for me, allowing me to put the syntax files in my user .vim dir:\n> svn diff\nIndex: mxml.vim\n===================================================================\n--- mxml.vim\t(revision 1527)\n+++ mxml.vim\t(working copy)\n@@ -299,7 +299,7 @@\n \n syn keyword xmlDocTypeKeyword contained DOCTYPE PUBLIC SYSTEM\n syn region \ xmlInlineDTD contained matchgroup=xmlDocTypeDecl start=\”[\” end=\”]\” contains=@xmlDTD\n-syn include \@xmlDTD :p:h/dtd.vim\n+runtime ! syntax/dtd.vim\n unlet b:current_syntax\n” - id: 7259 author: morch author_email: [email protected] author_url: ‘’ date: ‘2009-09-23 03:28:00 +0530’ date_gmt: ‘2009-09-22 21:58:00 +0530’ content: And I second Geoff’s comment about actionscript inside a CDATA in a MXML file being syntax highlighted differently than in an actionscript file. It looks wierd... - id: 7410 author: Puppies for Sale author_email: [email protected] author_url: http://www.k9stud.com date: ‘2010-05-21 07:53:00 +0530’ date_gmt: ‘2010-05-21 02:23:00 +0530’ content: There is a Ruby vim plugin that allows the functionality of clicking on a class name and doing some key command and you go to that class’s definition. - id: 7450 author: Orlando Puppies author_email: [email protected] author_url: http://www.9breedershappytails.com date: ‘2010-08-09 20:16:00 +0530’ date_gmt: ‘2010-08-09 14:46:00 +0530’ content: |- Incredibly helpful - thanks! For Actionscript 3 within an mxml file script tag, the syntax coloring is different than actionscript in a standalone *.as file - is that your intention (or maybe my environment is messed up :) ? - id: 7529 author: Anon author_email: [email protected] author_url: ‘’ date: ‘2011-03-31 19:21:00 +0530’ date_gmt: ‘2011-03-31 13:51:00 +0530’ content: thx for your work! ---
I am sharing VIM syntax files for ActionScript and MXML, which I was about to share last-year, I got lazy after Manish’s post. I hope, these syntax files would provide more (if not better) syntax-highlighting :-)
Click following links to download/see:-
You can refer to Manish’s post to learn how to use these files. Instruction applies to any VIM syntax file.
Credit goes to original creators of actionscript.vim and xml.vim. These files were starting points.
Disclaimer:These files work for me, these are not perfect or clean. I would try to clean up, add more (if any missing) syntax and share whenever I get time.
Technorati Tags: vim, syntax, actionscript, mxml, flex, flash
Yahoo! Open Hack Day has started with sessions from Joe Arnold (of Yahoo!), Christian Heilmann (of Yahoo! on Yahoo API and YUI) and Raghu (of Adobe on Flex and Mashup examples). More than hundred hackers have turned up, I am sure there would be more developers coming in, as time passes.
Technorati tags: hackdayindia, yahoo
Adobe has acquired Buzzword, the word-processor application built using Adobe Flex, by Virtual Ubiquity. It reminds me of Arul’s prediction, how some products are good candidates for acquisition by Adobe.
This is really motivating for flex developers. If you can build something cool and useful, Adobe might think of buying it.
Technorati Tags: buzzword, acquisition, adobe
Adobe has just released new prerelease builds of Adobe Flex 3, AIR and Media Player (AMP) on labs.adobe.com. I downloaded Adobe Media Player and checking it out, it looks good.
Technorati Tags: adobe, air, flex, media-player, prerelease, beta
India has won ICC twenty-twenty cricket world-cup. Final match was entertaining, breath-taking and totally cool. Congratulations to everyone. I hope and wish, Indian team continues the same form and wins the upcoming series with Australia.
::: {#hcalendar-Yahoo!-Hack-Day-India .vevent} Yahoo! Bangalore is hosting [Yahoo! Hack Day]{.url} between [October 5th 2:30pm] and [October 6th 11pm 2007] at The Taj Residency, Bangalore{.location}. :::
This is indeed a great opportunity to meet other smart people (hackers) and build/hack some cool stuff. Just carry your laptop and no need to worry about other things (Internet, food, snacks etc), I am sure Yahoo! would take care of all that for you.
If you are game, apply here, remember only a select number of developers would be invited.
Ali Mills posted about his experience of Google Developer Day. Where, Ali got to know about Google’s plan to host a flexible crossdomain.xml on their servers, which would allow third-party flex-flash-web-applications to access Google APIs.
As we know, [Youtube] also changed it’s crossdomain.xml, which broke many third-party flex-flash-applications consuming YouTube’s API. I understand, it was more of security reasons; Lesson to be learnt: Never host a crossdomain.xml (which allows all domains) on your main application server.
Similarly, Gdata, Picasa, Google-Calendar etc don’t allow all domains, only Google related properties.
I hope, Google guys hear us (Flash/Flex developers) and host a crossdomain.xml (as promised in Google Developer Day) asap.
Yahoo! has a good team of flash/flex developers, that could be the reason, Yahoo! has always been trying their best to satisfy the needs of developers. The most recent update, sure you all have heard of, Flickr now hosts a flexible crossdomain.xml, you can read more on these places:-
Technorati tags: google, crossdomain, api, flickr, yahoo, flash, flex, youtube
Google keeps coming up with innovative stuff, Google Indic Transliteration is one of latest additions. It allows English to Hindi transliteration.
It’s an AJAX application with pretty neat user-interface. I have started using it, and spread the word among my friends. The moment I saw, I thought, if there is an API to use it on our application. I don’t know, if there is one. I digged and found this URI:-
http://www.google.com/transliterate/indic?tlqt=1&langpair=en|hi&text=
wahan%2Caap&tl_app=3
It would return the JSON data (you might not see some characters):-
while(1); [ { “ew” : “wahan”, “hws” : [ “वहाà¤?”,”वहां”, ] }, { “ew” : “aap”, “hws” : [ “आप”, ] }, ]
You can send multiple English-words by separating them with comma (,).
That’s all, we need to use it in Flex/AIR app. Web-based Flex/Flash applications might require a server-side proxy to use this service, I am not sure, if Google’s crossdomain.xml allows access to third-party applications?
Technorati tags: google, Indic transliteration
Adobe Flash Player Security-Sandbox is very good and we have not heard any major security vulnerabilities so far. However, I think, it can be made more intelligent, I have some use-cases where I can’t do anything.
XMLSocket API is cool, since it’s inception, developers could create cool applications (multi-player games, chat-apps, presence-apps etc). XMLSocket servers (unity, swocket etc) is needed to comply with a specification in order to work with Flash Player (as a client). Since developers are using/creating custom-servers, they could control various things on server-side, f.ex: configuring right security-permissions, serving right policy-file (crossdomain.xml) etc.
With Binary Socket API, in Adobe Flash runtimes, things have changed a lot. Applications (for Adobe Flash runtimes) can now connect to servers using standard protocols (POP3, SMTP, Databases, HTTP etc). Totally cool feature which allows creation of kick-ass applications (Yahoo! Web Messenger, mySql driver etc). But Adobe Flash Player’s security-sandbox is limiting Binary Socket’s capabilities.
I have been working on a library (as3httpclient) to do more things (http-status-messages, http-authentication over GET request, support for more http-methods etc) which are not supported by URLLoader API. This library (as3httpclient) doesn’t work in deployed web-application because Adobe Flash Player’s Security-Sandbox restricts it to.
I have following questions/concerns:-
With standards, we expect flexibility. We can’t expect a HTTP server to push policy-file to Flash clients? That’s not standard.
Technorati tags: adobe, flash player 9, security sandbox, binary socket, as3httpclient