[mck]

I recently started my own company (eMCeeKay.nl) and I need to make a website for it…. Not really a problem besides that I don’t have any time to create a design.

So I was thinking about a easy way to update this website without spending extra time on that.

Because the main focus of the company is papertoys (urban papertoys), I need design or papertoy related info in my my new website ().

And I came with two ways to update it without extra effort: twitter (I tweet about a lot of stuff but primarily about papertoys) and this the content on this blog (category: urban-papercraft).

I started with the Twitter part.
There are two Twitter AS3 libraries that “speak” to the Twitter API: twitterscript/ and tweetr/.
But after reading the source I concluded that it was a little bit to much: I don’t want to tweet from emceekay.nl or do searches, so that was not the way to go.

A little google search gave me the solution: http://www.theflashlogs.org/flash/displaying-twitter-feeds-in-flash-with-rss/, simple using the standard rss from Twitter (in my case: Matthijs Kamstra – Twitter – rss).

The code on theflashlogs.org is pritty simple, and very easy to use.
So my code is a little addition to that, I need some stuff done to the rss feed:

• remove “MatthijsKamstra:” form the title
• convert @paperkraft to a link
• convert #Mecha6 to a link
• convert http:// to a link

Here is my code:

package nl.emceekay.twttr
{
	import flash.display.MovieClip;
	import flash.events.Event;
	import flash.net.URLLoader;
	import flash.net.URLRequest;
	import flash.text.TextField;
	/**
	 * // nl.emceekay.twttr.TwttrExample
	 * ...
	 * @author Matthijs Kamstra aka [mck]
	 */
	public class TwttrExample extends MovieClip
	{
		//default: http://twitter.com/matthijskamstra
		private var url:String = "http://twitter.com/statuses/user_timeline/27657030.rss"; 

		private var _txt:TextField;

		public function TwttrExample()
		{
			stage.scaleMode = "noScale";
			stage.align = "TL";

			// generate textfield
			_txt = new TextField()
			_txt.x = 10;
			_txt.y = 10;
           		 _txt.width = stage.stageWidth - 20;
           		_txt.height =  stage.stageHeight - 20;
			_txt.wordWrap = true;
			_txt.multiline = true;
			_txt.autoSize = "left";
			addChild(_txt);

			// start
			getFeed(url);
		}

		//////////////////////////////////////// loading rss / show rss ////////////////////////////////////////

		private function getFeed (inURL:String) : void
		{
			_txt.htmlText = "getting tweets";

			var loader:URLLoader = new URLLoader();
			loader.addEventListener(Event.COMPLETE, onFeedHandler);
			loader.load(new URLRequest(inURL));
		}

		private function onFeedHandler (e:Event):void
		{
			_txt.htmlText = "";
			var _feed:XML = new XML(e.target.data);
			var _item:XMLList = _feed.channel.item;
			for each (var feedItem:XML in _item){
				var _title		:String = feedItem.title;
				var _pubDate	:String = feedItem.pubDate;
				var _link		:String = feedItem.link;

				_title = convertTweet(_title);

				_txt.htmlText += _title + "<br><i>" + _pubDate + "</i><br><br>";
			}
		}

		//////////////////////////////////////// twitter specific ////////////////////////////////////////

		// one place to convert the tweet
		private function convertTweet (inString:String):String
		{
			var _str:String = inString;
			_str = twttrStripName(_str);
			_str = twttrConvertHTTP(_str);
			_str = twttrConvertMention(_str);
			_str = twttrConvertHashtag(_str);
			_str = twttrConvertSmileys(_str);
			return _str;
		}

		// remove the writers name from the tweet
		private function twttrStripName (inString:String):String
		{
			var _str:String = inString;
			var _charNumber:Number = _str.indexOf(":");
			return _str.substr(_charNumber + 2);
		}

		// convert http-strings to links
		private function twttrConvertHTTP(inString:String):String
		{
			var _str:String = inString;
			var _array:Array = _str.split(" ");
			for (var i:int = 0; i < _array.length; i++)
			{
				var _str2:String = twttrStripChar(_array[i]);
				if (_array[i].indexOf("http") != -1)
				{
					_array[i] = "<u><a href='" + _str2 + "' target='_blank'>" +_array[i] + "</a></u>";
				}
			}
			return _array.join(" ");
		}

		// convert mentions (@) to links
		private function twttrConvertMention(inString:String):String
		{
			var _str:String = inString;
			var _array:Array = _str.split(" ");
			for (var i:int = 0; i < _array.length; i++)
			{
				var _str2:String = twttrStripChar(_array[i]);
				if (_array[i].substr(0, 1) == "@")
				{
					_array[i] = "<u><a href='http://www.twitter.com/" + _str2.split("@")[1] + "' target='_blank'>" +_array[i] + "</a></u>";
				}
			}
			return _array.join(" ");
		}

		// convert hashtags (#) to links
		private function twttrConvertHashtag(inString:String):String
		{
			var _str:String = inString;
			var _array:Array = _str.split(" ");
			for (var i:int = 0; i < _array.length; i++)
			{
				var _str2:String = twttrStripChar(_array[i]);
				if (_array[i].substr(0, 1) == "#")
				{
					_array[i] = "<u><a href='http://twitter.com/search?q=%23" + _str2.split("#")[1] + "' target='_blank'>" +_array[i] + "</a></u>";
				}
			}
			return _array.join(" ");
		}		

		// TODO: [mck] convert   to a smiley image
		private function twttrConvertSmileys(inString:String):String
		{
			var _str:String = inString;
			return _str;
		}

		// remove "strange" characters from the end of the string
		private function twttrStripChar(inString:String):String
		{
			var _str:String = inString;
			var _charArray:Array = [',', ';', ':', ' ', '-', '_'];
			for (var i:int = 0; i < _charArray.length; i++)
			{
				if (_str.charAt(_str.length - 1) == _charArray[i]) {
					_str = _str.substr(0, _str.length - 1);
				}
			}
			return _str;
		}

	} // end class

} // end package

Currently I have only this proof of concept, but soon I will post the example on emceekay.nl…

Because this is part one of what I want to do, and don’t want to search for every link again, I’m posting also the WordPress link here (it’s just because I’m lazy).

So here the feeds I will be using:

• Matthijs Kamstra – Twitter – rss
• All Urban papercraft posts

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