ASP -> SWF Binary

[beelineuk]

Hello,

Has anyone ever used an ASP script to generate an SWF by response writing binary data? ie. a custom generator style ASP script which refers to a database to build the swf.

Cheers,

Mike

[johnie]

Bukoo http://bukoo.sourceforge.net/

It can do that with ASP.


Ming and LibSWF for PHP is much more advanced though. But then again I would use PHP over ASP anyhow- Since it is Cross Platform and MS only has a 40% or so share od servers. ASP only does MS servers where as PHP will work on Linux, MS, Solaris, Unix, ETC Servers.

[JAEzell]

Or, if you are willing to use a little JSP or make some Java calls:

http://www.flashgap.com

or, there is XML->SWF (also Java)

http://www.saxess.com

or, there is also a commercial product available called ASP Flash Turbine (I forget the link).

--Jesse

[beelineuk]

Cheers,

Those are some neat solutions. Unfortunately I can't use any 3rd party software so was looking into forming the swf myself from within in the ASP code byte by byte. Just wondering if this had done before, and if it was feasible. Looks like Bukoo have created Com objects to do just this, so it does work.

Would you believe all I need is a blank SWF with a list of variables which are generated dynamically - before you all shout y not just load in a variables, or use XML, there are very specific reasons that make it impossible.

So much work for something so basic!

Cheers,

Mike

[Musicman]

Hi,

I had some very specific reasons to do something like you about two years ago (let's say there were "fewer" sdk's around than there are today, but there was already O. Debon's swf reference) so I started from scratch on a program that converts text, i.e. instructions where to place letters on a page, to static swf files (movies one frame long) and does all the work involved with converting fonts and adding the characters to the movies. There is an example file at http://www.trio-musik.de/otce.html
The program ended up with around 3000 lines of C code. You have been warned.

Musicman

[beelineuk]

hi Musicman,

Thanks for the warning. What's the story behind that link you gave? Is that generating the entire swf dynamically by byte? That's quite an undertaking!

Lucky what I need doesn't actually display anything so it's very simple byte formations. Don't realy want to spend too much time on this, so I'll see how it goes.

Thanks,

Mike

[JAEzell]

Just go to openswf.org and take a look at the format specs. You could probably make something in a day or so to do what you want.

--Jesse

[Musicman]

Hi Mike,

sort of... From the way it is used it could best be described as a printer driver - it is fed a data stream telling it where to put the symbols, and it generates the swf from it.
There is actually a version of this program somewhere on the web (in some cgi directory) waiting for the components that will feed it a page description
BTW: I have the impression that there is not that much you can do in a flash movie without dealing with odd groups of bits packed into bytes

Musicman

[JAEzell]

Actually, the only tags that are like that are the tags containing matrixies, shape records, or bounding rectangles.

And, in some cases you could just give larger values for the bit sizes than are needed to get rid of the byte alignment problems (the real reason for the bit stuff is just to make file sizes smaller).

--Jesse

[chironex]

In many cases I have found that the bit packing to be more of a pain than anything.

An example is the RECT object used to describe the movie width and height in the header of the swf file. The specs for a RECT object appear to minimise the space to be used. but in this case no matter how many bits are used to represent the sizes, if the total isn't aligned then 0's are added to the end until it is (according to MM specs). So all that happens is space is wasted and more processing is needed.