Programming Flash Communication Server

This is the Title of the Book, eMatter Edition

Copyright © 2007 O’Reilly & Associates, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Preface

Chapter 18, Securing Applications

Looks at integrating authentication and role-based authorization into compo-

nents, including a ticketing mechanism

Although later chapters assume you have read and understood earlier material, you

can jump around the book to suit your experience level and needs.

Read Chapters 10 and 18 before making your server publicly available

on the Internet.

Audience

My coauthors and I assume you have some experience with scripting in either Flash

ActionScript, ECMAScript, or JavaScript, but the book is designed to meet the needs

of a wide variety of readers with varying backgrounds and interests. Where Action-

Script is discussed, familiarity with the Flash development environment is assumed.

If you’re new to the Flash authoring tool, you’ll want to read Flash Out of the Box

(O’Reilly). This book is not designed as an introductory step-by-step tutorial to pro-

gramming in Flash. There is a wonderful and growing variety of books and sources

on Flash programming. If you have little or no experience with ActionScript pro-

gramming, you should consult ActionScript for Flash MX: The Definitive Guide and

Essential ActionScript 2.0 (both from O’Reilly).

If you are looking for a step-by-step introduction to programming FlashCom, have a

look at the introductory chapters of this book. If you feel they are over your head,

consult the resources cited in the previous paragraph before returning to this book.

Also consider books such as Flash Remoting: The Definitive Guide and the Action-

Script Cookbook (also from O’Reilly) for targeted coverage of other areas of interest.

The book is not a printed version of the online documentation, nor does it attempt

to reproduce materials on widely available topics, such as how to install FlashCom.

Instead, it is designed to clarify and extend the information provided by Macrome-

dia’s documentation and web site. See in particular the documentation available at:

http://www.macromedia.com/support/documentation/en/flashcom/index.htm

This book was written by people who have used FlashCom and Macromedia’s docu-

mentation from the earliest days of the product. We all had to struggle to under-

stand just what Macromedia had given us and hope to help you avoid having to

repeat all our early tests and experiments. The book is designed to be read and

reread as your experience developing Flash communication applications increases.

The changes in Flash from versions 4 to 5 were revolutionary, and the changes from

version 5 to MX—among them components and video support—were also very dra-

matic. Flash MX 2004 introduced ActionScript 2.0 and added an entire new set of