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I'm stuck with a crappy digital signage platform that only renders .html and .swf files (and RSS feeds). No customization of RSS, only way to show something dynamic in a pretty way is to use Flash. The question: is there any way to embed JavaScript in .swf files or somehow have Facebook and Twitter Flash plugins?

I looked for ready-made .swf widgets for the job but didn't find any, if there is any Flash widget that serves a Facebook and/or Twitter feed please give me a link.

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  • The stripped-down browser cannot read javascript?
    – huzzah
    Commented Oct 22, 2012 at 14:33
  • nope and it contributes greatly to why its a crappy platform :p
    – ndp
    Commented Oct 22, 2012 at 14:42
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    Yeah you're right about that! So no web server, no PHP. Hmm....well, I found this tutorial on building a twitter feed in flash from 2009: active.tutsplus.com/tutorials/actionscript/…. I googled 'serve twitter feed in flash'. Maybe that'll help get you going.
    – huzzah
    Commented Oct 22, 2012 at 14:48
  • yup, when i heard how much this crappy thing cost us i started laughing in tears :p, thank you for the tutorial :-), now all i have to do is learn how to code in flash :p (which will happen if nobody answers by tomorrow :p )
    – ndp
    Commented Oct 22, 2012 at 14:57
  • We used ours to play videos so i never ran into this problem...good luck!!!!
    – huzzah
    Commented Oct 22, 2012 at 18:27

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You really cannot load complex JavaScript into Flash. It will not work. You said your signage app supports RSS. One simple option is to create RSS feeds from the data you are trying to get from Facebook or Twitter.

You can use PHP, Asp or something else to gain access to the Facebook/Twitter APIs. Then create dynamic RSS feeds that Flash can read. Flash can also read XML that is more complex than RSS. This gives you a lot of options.

I know Facebook has an ActionScript 3 version of their SDK. You can also use that SDK to build on the Facebook platform (http://code.google.com/p/facebook-actionscript-api/). This might be a bit too much for a digital signage application where I am assuming you just want to show live updates?

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  • hmm the is no way to load php or really anything server-side into it, I managed to find some facebook plugins that work but no twitter ones. Thanks for the answer though :)
    – ndp
    Commented Nov 13, 2012 at 12:01
  • You can run php on a different server to create the xml feeds?
    – Frank
    Commented Nov 20, 2012 at 4:34
  • ....and query the php server to get the feeds, a first class idea! now I only need to find a way to style it, since the default rss reader for it only displays it as scrolling text. Thanks a lot m8!
    – ndp
    Commented Nov 21, 2012 at 14:39
  • Yeah, best of luck.
    – Frank
    Commented Nov 23, 2012 at 4:14

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