Is there good .sol editor for Flash Player 9 Local Shared Objects? Can we build one?

Question

There's plenty of them out there but none of them do what I would like them to do.

Most of them crash when opening a file or simply corrupt the data. Many don't run at all. It seems to me that most were written 3-4 years ago for AS2 .sols and no longer work with FP9/AS3 sols. I'd attempt to write my own using AIR but I can't find a new spec of the byte format.

There's an explanation of the file format here: http://sourceforge.net/docman/display_doc.php?docid=27026&group_id=131628

and another here: http://sourceforge.net/docman/display_doc.php?docid=27026&group_id=131628

but it looks as though both of these docs are a good 4 years old (pre-FP9) and as I'm not skilled or experienced in file formats, writing a new one, especially without an updated spec, is seeming like less and less of a viable option.

Ideally I'd like one that can not only read the .sol, but edit and save new values also.

Thanks!

Answer 1

I'm confused, isn't the best editor for Flash 9 shared objects... Flash? It already has methods for loading, editing and saving them.

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So make the editor and put it on your website. You won't get any security errors from flash, and then just throw a password around it so regular people can't edit their .sol files.

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Yes, they are restricted by domain, so it'd have to live on the publishers sites. If you have hundreds of clients, that might be an issue, but if you have 3 or 4... It's certainly easier than coding your own file format parser.

Answer 2

Flash originally serialized data into a format called AMF, and with version 9+ uses an updated version called AMF3. While the AMF specs are open (the AMF3 spec is here), I don't think Adobe has opened the format of SOL files themselves. (Also, I think that SOL files written partially by v9+ players may contain both AMF0 and AMF3 data.)

As for existing apps/frameworks, it looks like PyAMF is your best bet, as it's the only one I found after a quick browse that claims to grok both AMF0 and AMF3. I haven't personally used it however.

Answer 3

Have you tried Sephiroth's SOL Reader?

http://www.sephiroth.it/python/solreader.php

I haven't used the new version (written in C#, with support for AMF0 and AMF3 ) but the previous one used to be fine.

PD: Out of curiosity, I just downloaded the new version and tried it. It crashed on every single SOL I tried to open. Too bad, it used to be a very nice editor...

Answer 4

http://www.sephiroth.it/python/solreader.php

I currently use this program. it works great

Answer 5

Use minerva. I've tried it, it works with every .sol I open it with.

Answer 6

@ Another_Castle,

The poster was wanting an editor that could both read and write shared object files. While I do like minerva, it clearly states on the site that there is a bug saving AMF3 format files. I have tried every program listed here to no avail and it seems that there is not an editor out there capable of saving amf3 format files after editing consistently. If someone has one please post it here.

Answer 7

Hi, have you checked SolVE http://solve.sourceforge.net/ ... it's good, it's free, it runs on OSX and Windows, and it was developed by a kick ass Flash developer

Cheers,

Answer 8

The newest version of minerva 3.2.1 does allow both open/read and write/save for .sol files and works with AS3. I know none of the other programs mentioned would work for saving .sol files.