Help with chat room.

[Flash_Light]

Hello everybody!

It's been hard to sing up to this forum but i'm finaly here! And so happy .

So now i only have a few more days left to me free trial and hoping i can get this flash program that i'm working on done before it's to late. So i need help from all on this. I'm working on a flash chat room and need some giedince though ( sorry for typos* ) some of the things that need be done on it. So if i'd ask please help me with this, I only have about 3 more days left to my 3dfa trial so if i can complete it be then and when you help me with this i'd be the happiest 3dfa costumer alive! lol

so what i need help with right now is a typing input place and a output place.

what i mean is i need a place to type then when you press enter it goes to the output place where all and the chat room can see. detailed discription on this will be vary appreciated.

thanks and all is apprecated.

PS: sorry for that long post.

[Eponefive]

how do you know if 3DFA has a trial I thought it was limited? =P

about your problem, im not sure lol

[Eponefive]

OMG never mind I just tried to up load a file as .swf and its said trial ended!!
I dont have 50$

[Flash_Light]

well if you click the purchase button on 3dfa you can see there how many days of your trial has been used.

And thanks for posting and if anyone can help with this chat box problem please .

Thanks.

[Eponefive]

oh no prob and thanks to you =)

[Flash_Light]

You're welcome and someone please help with this. i realy really need this.

[Flash_Light]

Hello isn't anyone there? Here I am.

[ConnELITE]

hi, I think your looking towards a mysql to flash interaction if you want the whole chat room to see. I doubt I could tell you how to do this before your trial end, however I could make a flash for you if your desperate. First of all do you have a server or hosting plan with mysql? Also if you have AIM feel free to IM me.

[Eponefive]

oh cool, im saving for that program, my trial ended TODAY! and I was working on my website and game, but thats a way of aking money=P

[ConnELITE]

yep, pay the 50! 3dfa needs it!

[Eponefive]

lol, and I need the program! n_n

[ForumNewbie]

Hi,

ConnElite has hit the nail on the head with the comments on the fact that Flash itself won't be able to do this on it's own.

In order to pass data backwards and forwards between multiple users, what you need to do is use 'server side scripting' to do the back-end interactions that take data from your PC, send it someone elses, then receive data back to your PC. Examples of languages that allow this are things like asp and PHP. If you want a Flash front-end so that the end user gets a nice experience, then 3DFA and other Flash products are pretty good at these, but remember that 3DFA is only really generating the front end. The trickiest bits are in the background.

The most robust and professional way to do this whole process would probably be to use a Flash Communications server, along with Flash MX to generate movies capable of doing these kind of interactions. (You can't use 3DFA with a Flash Communications Server though). To get something running quickly, with minimal time required to learn, then I think there's a chatroom demo example that comes with the communication server software, so this could be set up in a few hours. However, I think the cost of Flash MX and the Communications server package is well over £500.

If you're struggling to scrape together the 3DFA costs, then I guess you're best off with a cheap method, like using 3DFA to create a nice front-end, along with using a PHP/mySQL server for the back-end. The good thing is that this is cheap. The downside is you have to be prepared to put in time to learn things.

Depending on your previous experience, I'd suggest giving yourself 2-3 hours a day for about a month to learn enough PHP and mySQL to do this. The 'SAM's Teach Yourself PHP in 21 days' and 'Teach yourself mySQL in 21 days' books are some of the best ways to do this.

Unfortunately, there's not quite such an easy way to learn 3DFA, so you will probably have to search a lot of threads here for tips, tricks, examples, plus use the help files in 3DFA, and the demo animations to work out how to do this. I'd estimate about a month playing around with it for a few hours a day to be able to learn enough to do what you want to do.

In summary - Using 3DFA together with a server that has PHP and mySQL enabled would allow you to do what you're after for about $50. But - Be prepared for it to take some time to learn !

I would start with some simple animations first, and worry about multiple user applications some other time!

Best of luck though.

Morgan.