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Thread: is Com. server what I need?

  1. #1
    Senior Member
    Join Date
    Oct 2000
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    182
    Okay, I'm a newbie when it comes to this. Flash Com Server has a vague explination, where as generator seemed a bit more easy to wrap your brain around, even though I never actually used either.

    First off, I am assuming Flash Com Server is a replacement for Generator??? Am I correct?

    In flash 5 you had generator components that you could drag and drop. Rather than coding a load swf or what have you, you could drop a component on the stage and then label its source. Seemed easy enough.

    With Flash MX there are no server or generator components, but there are component components.... so I am a bit confused, because, for one, many of these are for plain old flash movies... nothing server side about them, so I assume these aren't nec. what I need to know.

    What I am doing is this:
    -We have a website that is going to have an "ad" type area on the front, designed in flash, not for client advertisements, but to highlight in-house areas of our site.... kind of advertising our own services. Rather than having me, the only Flash-er in the office create tons of flash files to fill it our need, I wanted to create a way that the editors here could fill in a Headline feild, a jpg file source, a URL to click to, and a blurb or something and have that info pop into an swf.

    -We would have, say, four of these "ads" running on the front. The editors would need to be able to tell it what they wanted to run and in what order.

    -I was planning:
    -to make a front end loader, that just loads the four movies... each one, then telling the loader to load the next once the current one is done playing?????
    -design three or four different animation templates... like in one the graphic and text fade in... in another the graphic and text slide it, etc. So, not only would they be inserting data into dynamic text fields and designating and jpg for loading, but they would somehow pick which flash animation type they wanted? Not sure the best way to do all of this.
    -With generator, it patched everything together on the server and then created an swf, right? Sent that to the client side, right? Well, does Com Server do the same thing? Because it would also be nice to grab and save the exported swfs that the editors are "creating" via a browser based form or flash movie and save them to an archive. With totally live dynamic stuff like a flash movie that LOADS swfs, text and jpgs from xml or database info, its all happening live and client side, so that isn't possible.

    Whats my best avenue for this? Here are the key elements again
    -4 "ads" that rotate
    -editors chose an animation template (seperate flash files maybe?)
    -editors fill in headline, blurb, jpg, and URL info (perhaps as well font types and colors?)
    -can they be archived

    I've experimented with pulling info into flash, determining things with XML loading, database pulls, variable sets, etc. But I don't even know where I create something that BECOMES a server application?????
    -is that what I need to do here? Use generator or flash MX server? Or not?
    -is flash mx server created from the flash mx interface the way that generator files were created
    -if I need to use generator, can I create a file from flash 5 using generator extensions.... if I do this, will I need GENERATOR on the server, or is this compatible/replaced by flash mx server.

    Thanks in advance, and I appologize for my lack of experience on this end of things.

    Thanks,
    Coffee Cat

  2. #2
    Member
    Join Date
    Aug 2001
    Posts
    76
    Didn't have much time to read your whole post but I can answer one question quickly.

    "With Flash MX there are no server or generator components, but there are component components.... so I am a bit confused, because, for one, many of these are for plain old flash movies... nothing server side about them, so I assume these aren't nec. what I need to know."

    You must download the components from macromedia's site...
    http://www.macromedia.com/desdev/mx/flashcom/
    Follow the readme file

    I'll try and help out more later
    Good Luck

  3. #3
    psx = new Moderator();
    Join Date
    Jan 2001
    Posts
    923
    Hey -
    Fcs isn't a replacement for generator. It's a different product entirely. It's made to be able to stream binary data to and from the client. It can stream audio and video. I explained as best I could what it is on this forum somewhere.

    But for what you want to do, you shouldn't need it. Just simply save all the stuff you want to a database, and then make a template swf that gets loaded into the main movie, loads the data from the database, and displays the proper content in the chosen way.

    Does that help at all?
    Psx

  4. #4
    Senior Member
    Join Date
    Oct 2000
    Posts
    182
    Yes, this helps. The main way I was considering to do it before I thought of perhaps using generator or mx server was to either do a database, or use xml. In fact, I've already drawn some structure up to using xml from an swf loaded onto the client-side machine.

    I was under the impression that generator could chew up the code and paste together a solid swf from the swt on the server side, sending the client a static, encased swf on their side.... I was hoping that mx server would keep this swt format and idea going, since its about 2,500 less to purchase than generator, and generator will not be having much future support nor any future versions. Anyone know why they didn't include this interesting and useful swt idea going, either in generator or in the new mx server? I don't understand why mx server is mainly ONLY for live flows?

    At any rate, xml parsing is my chosen route, I suppose.

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