Old news, but a new test.
Working on this RIA with this fellow contractor, and we finally decided that the best way sort the multitude of images we were dealing with was simply place all that data we needed about the file in the filename itself, therefore simlyfying the XML. The time it was taking me to create an application in <a href=”http://www.screenweaver.com/”>Screenweaver</a> to actually create the XML files with all data and filepaths intact was pretty long and involved, taking away from my time in actually completing client change requests. Therefore, I’d create a simple image list of files via a smaller scoped Screenweaver app, and then pull in the XML file through Flash. Flash then parses the XML file, strips the filepath, and slices it up via underscore (_) dilmiters into an object of arrays I can use in my code. Each part, such as size, category, and type are in 2 letter abbreviations in the filename. This makes adding new images for the client a snap… you just follow the naming scheme. The lack of error checking in that process as well as the lack of the ability to link some images with others that have common relationships aside, this is so far working pretty good. We were originally afraid, though, about the speed it would take Flash to do something like this on thousands of images.
So, I made a quick app consisting of 6 tests:
– loading in a 100 noded XML file
– loading in a 500 noded XML file
– loading in a 1000 noded XML file
– string parsing the 100 noded XML
– string parsing the 500 noded XML
– string parsing the 1000 noded XML
Then, I called him up, and together we tested the speed. It was crazy. I was using Flash <strike>7.0.16.0</strike> 7.0.14.0 for 3 tests each (below in milliseconds).
loading XML