Flash web poll

[sando]

Hi,

I am new to AS, and have a question about whether Flash Communications Server will be necessary for a collaborative application I'm designing for my Master's thesis.

It's a Web poll in the form of an interactive bubble chart. Basically, users click and plot their responses on this graph, and every click changes the nature of the graph. But it doesn't have to be completely synchronous; it's Ok if it refreshes only upon request, or every minute or so. But clearly the files needs to be updated on the server, right, and I have never done any server-side programming. Or any programming for that matter -- I've just started with client-side AS. But FCS seems quite sophisticated, and am not sure if I need that. Plus there's the issue of installation and purchase. I can't afford to buy anything.

If you would like to see an ASP version of the application I'm designing (someone else did the programming for me), go to http://webzone.k3.mah.se/kit01045/db/infoviz/poll/poll.asp. Also, if you'd like to see how the Flash version is shaping up client-side, you can see that at http://www.sfu.ca/~aivanov/demo.htm Also let me know if you'd like me to attach the AS code here.

Thanks guys!

[jsebrech]

You don't particularly need FCS, but you will need some kind of server-side script, which you will need to learn how to write. And especially how to write it so there's no corruption of the data when several people vote at the same time. For that last part I would suggest using a sql database for the backend, and using a single sql update statement to change the votes tally ("update votes set count = count + 1 where voteoption = "[insert selected vote option here]"). That way you'll get atomicity (meaning it won't execute that for more than one person at a time, so the value will always be modified correctly).

Then again, I haven't studied FCS. Maybe it makes this stuff simpler, so you won't need to learn ASP or PHP and mysql on top of it.

[sando]

thanks, jsebrech