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Flex Article

 

Integrating Remote Shared Objects with Flex and Flash Communication Server


Michael Labriola

Michael Labriola

Digital Primates

Table of Contents

  1. Introduction
  2. The Project and Approach
  3. The Layout
  4. Flash Communication Server
  5. The Good Stuff
  6. Data Structure Review
  7. The Result
Comments
Created:
13 Jun 2005
User Level:
Intermediate

This article originally appeared on the CFlex: Community Flex website.

Macromedia Flex and Flash Communication Server (FCS) together provide an amazing toolbox that will undoubtedly provide inspiration to thousands of developers and projects. Unfortunately, without concrete examples and guidelines for good practices on their integration, we spent many hours on tiny issues that, with additional information, could have been easily circumnavigated.

Those hours of trail-blazing are the inspiration for this article. This article tackles the basic integration of how to use a remote shared object on FCS with Flex. Our goal was to make this integration as simple and straightforward as using a web service from within a Flex MXML file.

Flex and FCS provide the foundation for Internet applications that deliver continually changing data to the desktop. This technology, called data push, allows a developer to update information on a user’s screen without a browser refresh.  In our company, we use this technology to build interactive auction sites that, within moments of a new bid, deliver updated prices on thousands of items to users around the world and update business systems that track critical orders, from estimate through final delivery. This coupling of technology can help you build any application where presentation, collaboration, and up-to-the-moment information is paramount.

Before continuing, I must emphasize that this is a basic implementation and a basic example. If you want to dig into more complex implementations, read, "Developing Rich Clients with Macromedia Flex" and "Programming Flash Communication Server." These books have become invaluable to our organization, and I can’t say enough positive things about both of them.

Requirements

To complete this tutorial you will need to install the following software and files:

Macromedia Flex

Macromedia Flash Communication Server MX

Macromedia Flash MX 2004

Tutorials and sample files:

Note: This zip file contains sample files and documentation for this article.

Prerequisite knowledge:

This article assumes that you are familiar with the basics of assembling a Flex application. If you’re not, check out the books mentioned above.

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About the author

Michael Labriola is a founding partner and senior consultant at Digital Primates IT Consulting Group. He has been developing Internet applications since 1995 and has been working with Flex since its 1.0 beta program. He specializes in developing applications with high business impact using emerging technologies.