Flash Remoting (evaluation version) is available at the Macromedia
website (free to download) and the Flash Remoting component is also available
at the Macromedia website for free.
There are two ways of using the Flash Remoting. The first
is to use it at your web server and the second is to use it with your Flash
application development. If you want to host an application which will use
Remoting then you just have to install the Flash Remoting to your host machine.
This requires that .NET framework already be installed on your host machine.
If you are developing a Flash application which will use
Remoting then you have to install the Flash Remoting component on your machine.
To install the Flash Remoting component you have to have Flash MX or Flash MX
2004 installed on your machine.
You must restart your computer after you install the Flash
Remoting or Flash Remoting component. It will not ask you to restart the
system, but it will not work until you restart the system.
Flashgateway.dll
Once you are done with the installation and are ready to start
your first "Hello Remoting" application, you have to do a few small
jobs to move forward. While you installed the Flash Remoting it would have
created a web application at "http://localhost/flashremoting."
The folder path is C:\Inetpub\wwwroot\flashremoting.
Go to this directory, open the bin and copy the flashgateway.dll and
frconfig.txt to the bin directory of your .NET application. The frconfig.txt
has the licensing information in it. We name the .NET application as MyRemoting
and from now on we will refer the .NET application as MyRemoting
Gateway.aspx
Add a file named gateway.aspx to your MyRemoting directory. This
file will be empty and will not contain any code. You can write one line as
the following.
Listing 1
<%@ Page %>
<!-- This file is intentionally blank. -->
This file will be used by the Flash Remoting as the starting
point to access your .NET application.
Web.config
Open the web.config file from MyRemoting directory and put
the below mentioned code in the middle of the file. This will be used by
MyRemoting to refer Flash Remoting.
Listing 2
<httpModules>
<add name="GatewayController"
type="FlashGateway.Controller.GatewayController,flashgateway" />
</httpModules>
Register Flash Gateway with .NET
Add the two tags mentioned below to your .aspx or .vb file
which will serve your Remoting call. For example, we will call it MyRemotingService.aspx
from here onwards. The first tag will register the Flashgateway with .NET and the
other tag will be used if you put your server side code in the aspx file only. You
can add functionality to the code behind the file as well.
Listing 3
<%@ register tagprefix = "Macromedia"
NameSpace ="FlashGateway" Assembly ="flashgateway" %>
<Macromedia:FLASH id="Flash" MACROMEDIA:FLASH MACROMEDIA:FLASH>
</Macromedia:FLASH>
We are done with the configuration, so what is next?
Now that we are done with all the setup for the Flash
Remoting, we can start writing code for the Flash to communicate with our
server application using Remoting. We will create a Flash file which will
communicate with the .NET Remoting server.
We will create a Flash application which has two sections.
One which takes user input for the user's first and last name and sends those
to the server as the XML object server will concatenate the first name and last
name and return the full name to the user as an XML object. Another section
will just take the user request and return server time in string format.
For this application at Flash end, we have one
“MyRemoting.fla” and one external ActionScript file named
“RemotingWithDotNet.as,” which contains the code for Flash to do Remoting. At the
server end we have a VB project, “MyRemoting.vbproj,” and “MyRemotingService.aspx.vb” to
serve the Remoting calls as well as few other .NET created files.
We start with the Flash part first. Create a Flash document
and name it "MyRemoting.fla."
Figure 2
Here is the code that goes into the action layer of our .fla
file.
Listing 4
#include "RemotingWithDotNet.as"
_root.btnFullName.onRelease = function(){
var sXML:String = "";
var oXML:XML;
if(_root.txtFirstName.text == "" || _root.txkLastName.text == ""){
_root.lblFullName.autoSize = "left";
_root.lblFullName.text = "Please type your first name and last name."
_root.status.text = "";
}else{ // Make XML string
sXML += "<root>";
sXML += "<firstname>" + _root.txtFirstName.text + "</firstname>";
sXML += "<lastname>" + _root.txkLastName.text + "</lastname>";
sXML += "</root>";
// Create XML object
oXML = new XML(sXML);
_root.status.text = "Connecting to the server...";
// Make a Remoting call to the server
_global.oRemoting.ConcatenateName(oXML);
}
}
_root.btnServerTime.onRelease = function(){
_root.status.text = "Connecting to the server...";
// Make a Remoting call to the server
_global.oRemoting.GetServerDateTime();
}The #include "RemotingWithDotaNet.as" does the
inclusion of our external file.
The other two functions are called on the different button
click. The root.btnFullName.onRelease()
picks values from the input boxes, prepares the XML object and makes a request
to the Remoting server.
The function _root.btnServerTime.onRelease()
does not need any XML to be sent, so it makes the server call as soon as the
button is clicked.
Here is the code from our RemotingWithDotNet.as file.
Listing 5
// This will be used for getting Remoting services.
#include "NetServices.as"
_global.oRemoting; // Global Remoting object, will be used to call Remoting services.
function init()
{
if (this.inited != undefined)
{ // init is not required.
return;
} else {
this.inited = true;
NetServices.setDefaultGatewayUrl("http://localhost/myremoting/gateway.aspx");
gatewayConnnection = NetServices.createGatewayConnection();
//This is our default relay interface
defaultService = "myremoting.MyRemotingService";
_global.oRemoting = gatewayConnnection.getService(defaultService, this);
}
}
// RESULT FUNCTION FOR: oRemoting.ConcatenateName()
function ConcatenateName_Result(result)
{
_root.status.text= "";
result.ignoreWhite = true;
trace("result :: " + result);
_root.lblFullName.autoSize = "left";
_root.lblFullName.text = "Hello " + result.firstChild.firstChild.toString();
}
function ConcatenateName_Status(error)
{
_root.status.text= "ERROR: " + error.description + newline;
}
// RESULT FUNCTION FOR: oRemoting.GetServerDateTime()
function GetServerDateTime_Result(result)
{
_root.status.text= "";
result.ignoreWhite = true;
_root.lblServerTime.autoSize = "left";
trace("result :: " + result);
_root.lblServerTime.text = result.toString();
}
function GetServerDateTime_status(error)
{
_root.status.text= "ERROR: " + error.description + newline;
}
init();
stop();The first line of the code #include
"NetServices.as" includes the file NetServices.as that will provide
us the implementation of Remoting functionality. The init() function
instantiates the Remoting object. In our case that is "_global.oRemoting."
We are done with the Flash side code; here is the server side code which will
serve our Remoting requests.
Listing 6
Imports System.Web.UI
Imports System.Xml
Public Class MyRemotingService
Inherits System.Web.UI.Page
'--- This function accepts a XML object with two child nodes as first name and
'--- last name and returns the full name in one node.
Public Function ConcatenateName(ByVal oXMLIn As XmlDocument) As
XmlDocument
Dim oXMLOut As XmlDocumen
oXMLOut = New XmlDocument
oXMLOut.InnerXml = "<root>" & _
oXMLIn.FirstChild.ChildNodes(0).InnerText & " " & _
oXMLIn.FirstChild.ChildNodes(1).InnerText & _
"</root>"
Return oXMLOut ' return the new XML object.
End Function
Public Function GetServerDateTime() As String
Dim sServerDate As String
sServerDate = Now().ToLongDateString.ToString & " " & Now().ToLongTimeString.ToString
Return sServerDate
End Function
End Class
This class has two functions: ConcatenateName()
and GetServerDateTime(). We can call these from our
Flash application.
