Communication Server vs NetMeeting

[jamaral]

I am giving a presentation later on today about the Flash Communication Server to the company I work for. I know that some groups in my company are using Microsoft NetMeeting. I know one of the questions I am going to be asked is why use the Communication Server over NetMeeting. Besides the obvious answers like cross-platform and cross-browser issues does anybody have any thing that will help me strengthen my Flash Communication Server argument.

Thanks in advance,
Jeremy

[psychlonex]

Hmm... I have a similar presentation coming up...

Data integration - fcs hooks to remoting, which hooks to databases, web-services, etc.

I think the biggest point and what I plan to talk the most about is how with netMeeting, you are stuck with what they give you - sort of generic communication from what I remember. With fcs, you are able to do whatever your company desires... ie a communication app that is tailored to how you work.

Add a few ideas of how it can be used other places as well - website content management, real-time data, intranet communications... etc.

psx

[jamaral]

thanks psychlonex- that was exactly the kind of information I was looking for. I have never used NetMeeting before so I didn't no how customizable it was. From what I have seen,as I was setting up a sample FCS presentation application, the FCS is pretty powerful. I am actually giving my presentation to a group of people through the FCS. If that can't sell them, what can? Any idea if you could customize the shared whiteboard to open external images and allow you to draw over top of them. How about the setting up the ability to export the shared slides content to xml or atleast a text file for print. When I initially set up my FCS demo app, I place different communication components on separate frames, each of which was loaded using the Simpleconnect. When I ran the movie and went froward to the next frame the components didn't work. Any ideas? I ended up cramming them all on one screen for now. That took care of the problem with all of them working but now there is a lot to look at.

Jeremy

[psychlonex]

Hey -
That seems to def. be an issue with using the components. The problem is that if you have the simpleconnect on say frame 1, and when someone connects it goes to frame2 where the actual app is, if you remove simpleconnect, or add a new keyframe for it, it will get reset.

What I've been doing is just hiding things I don't want the user to see. ie - after a user connects, something like:

simpleConnect_mc._visible = false;
othercomponent_mc._visible = true;

It is definitely possible to customize the components like you want - and exporting the xml/text should be doable as well.

Trying to get my head around creating/modifying fcs components - Getting there, but not quite on top of it yet.

Seems there is alot to be desired with the wb comp. - a few folks I believe are working on a new one with more drawing capabilities.

Also - do some research on netMeeting before-hand, I've not used it in a year at least, so they may have improved upon it, but I still don't see how it can handle some of the other stuff fcs is good at, ie content-management, etc.

Psx

[agent vivid]

i think an important thing to keep in mind is that you can put the company's brand smack inside of a comm app and give that app the company's 'look and feel'

i.e. skinning components to match the company's color scheme

whereas netmeeting is pretty generic and really m$

we like the fact that when we videoconference, it "feels" like it's ours rather than m$

and the fact that it has a whiteboard and presentationSWF components are a big plus also

[YWNM]

To load external images you use the "presentationSWF" componet.

It ties in easily with the simple connect. You create a SWF called "slides"

You put below into the Action script
-----------------------------------
stop();
this.createEmptyMovieClip("empty",0);
this.empty.loadMovie("image1.jpg");


And then on each additional frame:

this.empty.loadMovie("image2.jpg");
-----------------------------

And so on.

So each frame is like that. It's a little primative but it works. Also keep in mind that the presenter will have to have a seperate frame of the presentation(opposed to slide) movie or a completely different movie as the presenter will need to be set as the presenter or administrator. I can;t remeber or find what the code is right now. But you probably already have it. Let me know if you don;t and I will look harder or if someone else know what I am talking about they can post it here.

Hope you aren't confused. And yes I updated it thanks to psychlonex for the updated and cleaner code. If you want a sample just let me know I can create a sample here and e-mail it to you. This thread is a lil old but for anyone how is looking back this should help.