Hi rez, welcome to the CMS Builder forum!
The post you linked to and these docs on creating an RSS feed have details on creating XML pages with CMS Builder: http://www.interactivetools.com/docs/cmsbuilder/rss_feeds.html
Basically CMS Builder doesn't care if it's outputting HTML or XML, it's all just text and tags.
>Can someone show me what the xml file would look
>like in the way that the last entry in the thread i linked
>to does?
I can't write the code for you, but I can point you in the right direction. The first step is to create a mockup XML file, then get CMS builder to re-create that file with data from the database.
>So this xml file, is actually a php file. Is my
>understanding correct that the browser will run the
>php and when flash imports it, it will see it as an original
>xml file like my code above? However that works, the
>bottom line is that i just point flash to mynews.xml.php, correct?
Yes, as far as flash is concerned it's an XML file. It will never see the PHP, just the XML output the php creates.
>Can I have a text bar in the editor for the cdata text entries so that
>the client can use simple formatting for flash html? There are a few
>differences like for bold and font, etc. when it comes to flash html.
We use the popular open source wysiwyg called tinymce. The wysiwyg can be customized but you're need to research how to do that. The wysiwyg config file can be found here: /cmsAdmin/lib/wysiwyg.php and the online docs here: http://wiki.moxiecode.com/index.php/TinyMCE:Index
>Can I use a file browser/ wysiwyg editor for the picture entries
>so the client browses for a picture instead of typing a link? I
>need some direction here. Maybe it's the same for using any
>picture in an editor and I just use the right code in the xml file?
You'll have to experiment with the wysiwyg. Generally you need to upload each image. If you have a fixed number of images that doesn't change you may be able to setup the CMS to have a pulldown of images that the user can select. There's no support for image galleries where you can select previously uploaded images though.
>Is there a way to handle the auto thumbnail filed and larger picture
>field with cmsbuilder so again, the client doesn't see any code but the
>end result is the correct xml format like my example above? Possibly a
>redundant question. Just seems a little different to auto create a thumb
>while uploading, then somehow filling in the xml node with it. In other
>words, they would probably upload bigPicture, and a thumb would be
>created and the link would be the picture (thumb) node. By the way, i
>am using flash to do all the positioning, so none of those options should
>be available to the client in the editor.
Yes, CMS Bulder can automatically create up to 5 thumbnails of different sizes for your uploaded images (usually you'd just use 1).
The best way to get started is to install CMS Builder and start experimenting creating different types of sections.
Hope that helps.
Dave Edis - Senior Developer
interactivetools.com