Actually, I think a graph paper theme would be pretty cool

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*Please keep in mind that this deviant is not an art critic. Disregard comments at own discretion.
~blueelf007: My loyal follower. Incidentally, a funny guy too.

Maybe, but it'd be pretty boring to show off. I'm kind of hoping that I get an idea that'd be really catchy, something that could be colorful and animated...

But if that idea never comes, at least someone won't mind the new layout!

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Error Taxi is Error.

do you have your problems connected to a database?
or an xml file?
as3?

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What am I actually doing here?

Database? You mean XML or are there other ways of doing it? (Without the use of SSL, since that's not an option on DA.)

I had never even considered using XML for these until a few weeks ago, but I'd still need to have multiple files for DA and things like that (I think). As for AS3, I never bothered trying to learn it until a few days ago, and it just doesn't seem right for these. The language is so different and clunky, plus there's no real point in using AS3 since these are relatively small files.

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Error Taxi is Error.

do you create those .swfs with Flash or any other program?
The size of the files has nothing to do with the language used. So you are on as2?

I thought you just have one file that'S always the same (somethign like a player) this loads the data of the positions of the stones from a database where you've created the problem previously...

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What am I actually doing here?

Yes I use Flash. And AS3 is supposedly more "powerful," so I figured that also meant faster compile times or whatever. I don't know, sorry.

If I used a database, that's how I'd do it. But the problem is that for sites like DA I wouldn't really have a way to tell the player which problem to load, hence the issue of needing 500 files.

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Error Taxi is Error.

why?

I'd create some sort of CMS to create a new problem, that problem is stored in the database or a big xml file (the DB ist probably the better choice) now when you finished it, the cms gives you and ID and now you just have to upload a new player that displays the problem with that has this ID.

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What am I actually doing here?

What do you mean by "database?" Do you mean SQL or something that I haven't heard of yet?

As for the CMS and ID, I would still have the problem of duplicate "players." Let's say I want to go back and change the font color on a template; I'd have to go through every "player" and change the color manually. Plus, I'm not very familiar with Actionscript so having the "player" build the problem might be tricky. It's not that I'm being stubborn and doing it "my way," it's just that I don't have much time to spend on these things and learning how to do them is always a pain because I have to constantly start and stop.

But I have been toying with the idea of allowing people to create their own problems, and a CMS using an XML database would be the answer to that! (Of course, I'd probably want to monitor what goes into that database...)

Oh, and one last thing, since you keep mentioning XML... Do you know if it's a bad idea to have something like a 20,000 line XML file? It just seems like that might not be the best practice...

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Error Taxi is Error.

Yes, I mean a mysql DB.
No you wouldn't have the problem of multiple players.
Actually, I would just submit ONE player in one submission.
As it connects to a php file it will contain a list of the recent problems.
This way, you could have your next 50 problems in that player styling them as you want, when you want to notify your watchers about a new problem, you could simply inform that you have updated this deviation.

I don't think you need all of the 20000 lines at one moment, so you have to load things you do not need, because you can only load the complete file.
That's why a Database is the better choice (as said in my previous post), you just load what is on demand, nothing else.

You have no time? I know this problem.
Some people say time is money. So think about it, when you invest time, it will pay of later.
A cms is always a big thing to setup, but if you have it, you do not have to waste any more time.

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What am I actually doing here?