hi all, For a few months I've been working on software for some people who do "cyberformance", which boils down to being theatre in chat rooms. They want to be able to do everything they can in their vintage Mac apps, but be accessable to a general audience. So I've almost written a graphical chat thingy using SWF for the front end and twisted for the server. I wasn't quite ready to announce it, but the Daily Python Url has gone and exposed it anyway. The theatrical paradigm makes it very slightly different from most chat programs - for example, you don't need to log in to watch, but as audience you won't appear on stage; the "avatars" are more like puppets - players can exchange them during the performance without the audience knowing. There are also a few unusual features, like text-to-speech processing (using Festival), and seconds-per-frame live video, to suit the particular performance style of the artists. But really it's just a chat program. And it's GPL'd, so if anyone wants a chat program, it wouldn't be too hard to configure the strange elements away (and I'd really appreciate anyone using it). The flash part is generated entirely from actionscript, using the Ming compiler (http://ming.sf.net/), which I found to be easier than working in Macromedia Flash, not to mention altogether freer. You still need the flash plugin to view it though. Some things about it are a bit broken, and the tests are woefully out of date. But there you go. http://sourceforge.net/projects/upstage/ and http://upstage.org.nz/ cheers, douglas