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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Chapter 4

CHAPTER 4

Applications, Instances, and

Server-Side ActionScript

FlashCom applications can be scripted on the server using Server-Side ActionScript

(SSAS) and the server-side objects available to it. With SSAS, you can control who

can access an application and what resources are available to each user. You can con-

trol Flash movies remotely, switch the stream source that people are watching, chain

streams between FlashCom Servers, and access and update databases.

Server-Side ActionScript is a little different from the client-side ActionScript used to

script Flash movies. This chapter describes how to write Server-Side ActionScript

and work with the objects that control application instances and the Flash movies

that connect to them. Scripting on the server is as important as scripting in Flash.

This chapter is designed to get you going on the server side of things and to prepare

you for the chapters that follow. Future chapters on streams, remote shared objects,

and remote methods all describe how to script communication objects within Flash

and their counterparts on the server.

Scripting Application Instances

A single FlashCom Server can host many different applications. Each application gets

its unique server-side behavior from the scripts associated with it. You create an

application by adding a subdirectory to an applications directory on the server. Mac-

romedia refers to each applications subdirectory as a registered application directory

because creating it registers an application with FlashCom. In turn, the server makes

instances of the application available to Flash movies that try to connect to them.

Every registered application directory can also be thought of as the home directory

for that application. You can script an application by adding a main.asc file to the

application’s home directory. For example, adding a subdirectory named

courseLobby to an applications directory creates a new application named

courseLobby. The main.asc file in the courseLobby directory gives the application its

unique server-side behavior. Server-Side ActionScript files, such as main.asc, are text

files containing source code. They can be created with any plain text editor, such as