Flash Remoting: The Definitive Guide
 

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Flash Remoting: The Definitive Guide

by O'Reilly Media, Inc.

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Average Rating: * * * * half star
Sales Rank:622849 (lower is better)
Price as of:07/21/2008 7:13:49 AM MDT
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Label:O'Reilly Media, Inc.
UPC:636920004011
Pages:640
Binding:Paperback
Publication Date:2003-09-23
Published By:O'Reilly Media, Inc.
ASIN:059600401X
Category:Book

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Editorial Reviews and Product Descriptions

Product Description

Flash Remoting MX lets developers easily integrate rich Macromedia Flash content with applications that are built using Macromedia ColdFusion MX, Microsoft .NET, Java, PHP, or SOAP-based web services. The result is complex client/server applications that more closely resemble desktop applications than traditional web pages. Gone is the click/wait/reload approach of HTML. Your web application uses Flash as the front end while Flash Remoting handles the communication behind the scenes with the application server. All the end user knows is that it's fast and flexible. The potential uses for Flash Remoting are endless. Flash Remoting: The Definitive Guide will help you understand this breakthrough technology and use it to build your own Rich Internet Applications (RIAs). Build applications that connect to a database, file system, or other server-side technologies. Or, use Flash Remoting to create:
  • online stores that feature catalogs and shopping cart systems
  • sound and video clip libraries
  • banner ads with built-in shopping carts, click-through tracking, and site search capabilities
  • new controls that can be used in place of HTML
  • extensions to Flash, Dreamweaver, Fireworks, and more
  • front-ends to databases for administrators
The book begins with Flash Remoting basics: setup, installation and an introduction to its underlying concepts. Next, you'll explore the Flash's User Interface components as they relate to Flash Remoting. Then, you'll gain insights into Flash Remoting internals and the Remoting API. The book is rich with examples that you will be able to run on your own system. The next section focuses on the server-side environment that you'll use for your applications. Individual chapters cover Flash Remoting with ColdFusion, Server-Side ActionScript, Java, ASP.NET, and PHP. The last section covers more advanced Flash Remoting techniques, such as calling web services from Flash Remoting, extending objects and UI controls, best practices, and debugging. Plus there is a detailed chapter demonstrating a real-world application. The book concludes with a Flash Remoting API reference. Developers who are looking to create Rich Internet Applications with Flash will find Flash Remoting: The Definitive Guide indispensable.

Customer Reviews

Make sure you know what you want!! - Reviewed on 2005-03-26
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13 customers found this review helpful.

This book covers PRE ACTIONSCRIPT 2.0 REMOTING!! It is very important you understand this. FlashMX 2004 (standard and professional) have components that handle most of this. The notion of flash remoting has really evolved now, and is a function of the Flash editor more than just a bunch of included actionscript files. New developers should definately spend some google time to ensure they understand what they are getting. All that aside, this is a great book for anyone wanting to learn Flash Remoting with Actionscript < 2.0. Tom Muck presents information thoroughly and it was not hard to pick up this version of flash remoting. This book would have been given 5 stars if it were not for 2 things, 1) its out of date in my opinion, MX2004 is the standard now, and 2) the book added weight and pages b/c of the ever present language "reference" that is available if you have the flash editor, and if you don't then you don't need the book.. It peevs me that editors/publisher constantly waste paper on organic information like language references.
Don't worry about the MX 2004 Classes - Reviewed on 2005-03-09
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2 customers found this review helpful.

There are very few books that cover Flash Remoting, fortunately O'Reilly's Flash Remoting: The Definitive Guide is on hand to do the job. This is the definitive guide, it covers the concepts and techniques neccesary to connect Flash to a remote server and then do something usefull.

Flash MX 2004 was released after this book, as a result I hesitated in getting a book that didn't cover the "latest". I was wrong. The Flash MX 2004 Remoting Classes have not affected what this book has to offer in any way.

Remoting is not about connecting to the server, that's the easy part. Remoting is about doing something usefull once you have connected. Flash Remoting the Definitve Guide offers plenty of practical information as well as theory. My favorite is the exhaustive coverage of the RecordSet class. The section on best practices is also excellent.

I used to think a good software book was the newest. Now I am of the opinion that even in the constantly changing field of software, some books do stand the test of time.
Great book about a complex subject - Reviewed on 2004-04-28
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11 customers found this review helpful.

I have to take issue with the 1 star review. The reviewer obviously had some hidden agenda, with statements like "Virtually anything that could be done with Remoting could be done without it" and "unless you're a hard core Flash nut bent on Macromedia domination front end and back this book is awful". If the reviewer had done his homework he would have seen that Flash Remoting is not only the fastest way to move data into a Flash movie (remoting packet sizes are much smaller than typical methods such as XML or web services), but it is also the most efficient use of the end-user's computing power. A Flash movie that uses components (such as a rich internet application) will bog down if you try to parse data and populate components. Using any other method of passing data to Flash (LoadVars, XML, Web services) the data has to be parsed. Using Flash Remoting, you don't have to parse the data -- it is ready to use. The book clearly explains the advantages and also explains how the results were obtained. The other reviewer obviously didn't read the book. The examples were clear and easy to read, and the text explained complex concepts much more clearly than any of the Flash Remoting documentation. This book gets 5 stars and sits on my desk next to ActionScript: The Definitive Guide.
Confusing and poorly organized - Reviewed on 2004-04-27
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1 customer found this review helpful, 14 did not.

Not only is the book poorly organized but it doesn't treat any one area well. It's hard to read and painfully inaccurate. Most of the URLs listed in the book no longer work. Virtually anything that could be done with Remoting could be done without it just as easy using another technology cheaper and easier. Unless you're a hard core Flash nut bent on Macromedia domination front end and back this book is awful. I tried to sell it and no one would buy it after reading the first few chapters. Forget the lip service of the other reviewers as someone who develops web apps for a living I can tell you Flash Remoting isn't the best way to go in most cases and in the 2% of cases that it is... this book isn't going to be any help at all.
Flash MX 2004 and Pro code is online - Reviewed on 2004-02-02
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15 customers found this review helpful, 2 did not.

The author's site includes updated information. The code presented in the book works "as is" in the latest version of Flash, I believe. The caveat is that Flash MX 2004 and Pro users must download some libraries from Macromedia's site.

In any case, detailed instructions for working in Flash MX 2004 and Pro are posted on the author's web site (flash-remoting.com). See especially the article on that site addressing the topic: http://flash-remoting.com/articles/fr2004pt1.cfm

Disclaimer: I'm the book's editor.

FWIW, the book was published before Flash MX 2004 and Flash Pro were released. Furthermore, for many months after the official release, Macromedia didn't upgrade the remoting components to ActionScript 2.0.

Any questions about the content or upgrading to Flash MX 2004 or Pro can be addressed to me, the author, or O'Reilly technical support.

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