More information and examples of using Flash MX together with web services, this time from Jeffrey Hill of Flash-db.com. He has put together quite a few examples of code doing it with PHP and Flash MX. To quote him:
Here’s my implementation (completed before the MM went up).
The Download and Documentation
The comparison between CF and PHP
(use’s MM’s client for both CF and PHP)
Some other web Service’s I’ve put up for download in the past couple weeks/months:
By looking over the code – It should be really easy for anyone to implement a Web Service in Flash.
Interesting examples. But it reminds me of how sad it is that Flash MX is reliant on server scripts to perform web services. I understand the security problems with allowing Flash to contact any server, but it would still have been nice to be able to make web-apps that tied directly into various web services.
One of the advantages of tying your Flash app to one server backend is that you can accommodate web services that are intermittently unavailable.
Say you use CFMX to proxy your web service request and for whatever reason the web service fails. you could trap the error and have CFMX deliver a previously cached version of what the webservice was offering. Or alternatively the server might look for an alternative provider of the same information or resource.
Although this could be tied into logic in the flash app it seems much more robust to have this managed on the server side and leave the Flash app to the presentation logic it is so good at.
I like how Jeff Hill is trying to say that “Oooh, it’s less typing in PHP.”
Yo Jeff… a CF Guru could probably widdle that down even more if he tried, I’m not gonna count on you to provide an accurate CF code sample. :P Try looking into CreateObject() if you realy want to see some power.