new-b: Flash Remoting or Flash Comm Server?

[geedubb]

Sorry for the basic question, but I am trying to decide if I need Flash Comm Server or Flash Remoting to achieve my goal. I find the info I have found on the net pretty confusing. Also, what happened to Generator?? Did that evolve into Flash Remoting?

Anyway, I am producing a website that will allow the administrator to design a flash map (basic .swf that allows positioning of objects, with a 'save' option that currently generates an XML file that describes the objects and their positions). These maps (with different layouts) will appear on several pages. I want to deliver the maps in 2 flavours - static image (JPEG/PNG) or .swf. This obviously entails building the .swf on the server side and probably caching it to save overhead.

I'm expert in actionscript 1/2 and Flash, but have never done any server-side stuff with regards to dynamically generating .swfs. I've only ever called PHP/.NET scripts on the server with loadVars, etc, and also some webservices).

Thanks in advance for useful feedback.

[petefs]

Neither Flash Remoting or Flash Comm Server generate an SWF -- they simply allow dynamic data sources to interact with a flash movie.

Generator was nixed. The evolution, if you choose to call it such, is Macromedia Flex. There's an open platform similar to Flex called Laszlo ( http://www.laszlosystems.com/ ) that runs on the J2EE platform. If you want to generate your SWF dynamically that's one way to do it. Another is to use the MING library with PHP, or one of the other libraries for generating SWFs dynamically (can't think of other names off the top of my head ^_^)

It's not really necessary to generate the SWF dynamically for what you want, though. You could put the drawing logic in the main SWF itself and just pass whatever coordinate data to and from the XML file. Either way works, though ^_^

[geedubb]

The Pete:

Thanks for the reply. Looks like I have opened up a can of worms! We're using Microsoft technologies for everything, apart from Flash. The server will be W2k3 server, and the main application will be coded in C#. This kind of rules out using Java, etc. Also, I checked out Flex, and I think I am right in saying that it is **very** expensive!

Looks like I'll need to do it the old-fashioned way, and, like you say, populate the .swf by loading and parsing the XML from the backend. I'll have a look at Laszlo though as I have not come across that before.

Just out of interest - was Generator able to produce .swf on the server side?

Cheers
GW

[mrand01]

if you know ASP, PHP, or ASP.NET, look into www.blue-pac.com

[geedubb]

mrand - thanks for the reply! This product looks like just what I need. Can it renders .PNG or .JPEG from a .swf file?

Cheers
GW

[mrand01]

hmm, I haven't looked into that...I know it can do the opposite though...

[geedubb]

Hi Again

Checked the Flash Tubine docs and found '* SVG and image output to be available later on the Turbine product line as separate plug-ins. The PDF plug-in is already available'. - So looks like it is on the cards!!

G