MACROMEDIA FLASH REMOTING MX-USING FLASH REMOTING FOR FLASH MX 2004 ACTIONSCRIPT... Mounting instructions

Using Flash Remoting for Flash MX 2004 ActionScript 2.0

Trademarks
Add Life to the Web, Afterburner, Aftershock, Andromedia, Allaire, Animation PowerPack, Aria, Attain, Authorware,
Authorware Star, Backstage, Bright Tiger, Clustercats, ColdFusion, Contribute, Design In Motion, Director, Dream Templates,
Dreamweaver, Drumbeat 2000, EDJE, EJIPT, Extreme 3D, Fireworks, Flash, Flash Lite, Flex, Fontographer, FreeHand,
Generator, HomeSite, JFusion, JRun, Kawa, Know Your Site, Knowledge Objects, Knowledge Stream, Knowledge Track,
LikeMinds, Lingo, Live Effects, MacRecorder Logo and Design, Macromedia, Macromedia Action!, Macromedia Breeze,
Macromedia Flash, Macromedia M Logo and Design, Macromedia Spectra, Macromedia xRes Logo and Design, MacroModel,
Made with Macromedia, Made with Macromedia Logo and Design, MAGIC Logo and Design, Mediamaker, Movie Critic,
Open Sesame!, Roundtrip, Roundtrip HTML, Shockwave, Sitespring, SoundEdit, Titlemaker, UltraDev, Web Design 101, what
the web can be, and Xtra are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Macromedia, Inc. and may be registered in the United
States or in other jurisdictions including internationally. Other product names, logos, designs, titles, words, or phrases mentioned
within this publication may be trademarks, service marks, or trade names of Macromedia, Inc. or other entities and may be
registered in certain jurisdictions including internationally.
Third-Party Information
This guide contains links to third-party websites that are not under the control of Macromedia, and Macromedia is not
responsible for the content on any linked site. If you access a third-party website mentioned in this guide, then you do so at your
own risk. Macromedia provides these links only as a convenience, and the inclusion of the link does not imply that Macromedia
endorses or accepts any responsibility for the content on those third-party sites.
Apple Disclaimer
APPLE COMPUTER, INC. MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EITHER EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, REGARDING THE
ENCLOSED COMPUTER SOFTWARE PACKAGE, ITS MERCHANTABILITY OR ITS FITNESS FOR ANY
PARTICULAR PURPOSE. THE EXCLUSION OF IMPLIED WARRANTIES IS NOT PERMITTED BY SOME STATES.
THE ABOVE EXCLUSION MAY NOT APPLY TO YOU. THIS WARRANTY PROVIDES YOU WITH SPECIFIC
LEGAL RIGHTS. THERE MAY BE OTHER RIGHTS THAT YOU MAY HAVE WHICH VARY FROM STATE TO
STATE.
Copyright © 2004 Macromedia, Inc. All rights reserved. This manual may not be copied, photocopied, reproduced,
translated, or converted to any electronic or machine-readable form in whole or in part without prior written approval of
Macromedia, Inc.
Acknowledgments
Project Management: Erick Vera
Writing: Robert Berry
Editing: Barbara Milligan, Antonio Padial, Lisa Stanziano
Production Management: Patrice O’Neill
Media Design and Production: Adam Barnett and John Francis
First Edition: June 2004
Macromedia, Inc.
600 Townsend St.
San Francisco, CA 94103

3
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION: About Flash Remoting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Who should read this book . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
About Flash Remoting documentation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
What’s new in Flash Remoting for Flash MX 2004 ActionScript 2.0. . . . . . . . . . . 10
Developer resources. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
Contacting Macromedia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
CHAPTER 1: Getting Started . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
About Flash Remoting. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
Flash Remoting data flow . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
Understanding the Flash Remoting service adapters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
Building Flash applications with Flash Remoting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
Understanding the Flash Remoting development environment. . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
Using Flash Remoting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
Migrating existing applications to Flash Remoting for Flash MX 2004
ActionScript 2.0 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
Making the minimum changes to your application for ActionScript 2.0. . . . . . 22
Taking full advantage of Flash Remoting for Flash MX 2004 ActionScript 2.0 . 23
Migrating the DataGrid application to Flash Remoting for Flash MX 2004
ActionScript 2.0 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
Example: migrating the DataGrid application . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
CHAPTER 2: Using Flash Remoting ActionScript . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
Flash Remoting application structure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
Flash Remoting ActionScript classes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
Properties and methods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
Importing Flash Remoting ActionScript classes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
Configuring Flash Remoting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
Establishing the Flash Remoting gateway connection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
Specifying a service . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
Authenticating a user to the application server . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
Calling service functions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
Specifying functions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
Calling functions using named arguments in ColdFusion. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43

4 Contents
Handling service results and errors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
Using the RelayResponder object for a service . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
Using PendingCall and RelayResponder objects for a specific service function . 45
Using the ResultEvent class. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
Using the FaultEvent class . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
Using the Flash Remoting ActionScript API in the
CustomerInfoExampleAPI application . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
onReveal() . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
updateDetails(). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
refreshCustomerData() . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
onCustGrid_Change() . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
onCustCat_Change() . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
onCategoryData(). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
onCustomerData() . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
onCustomerFault() . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
onCategoryFault() . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
CHAPTER 3: Using the RemotingConnector component
(Flash Professional only). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
RemotingConnector parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
Creating an instance of the RemotingConnector component . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
Using the RemotingConnector in the CustomerInfoExampleCon application. . . . 57
onReveal() . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
updateDetails(). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
onCustGrid_Change() . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
onCustomerData() . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
onCategoryData(). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
onCustomerDataFault() . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
onCategoryDataFault(). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
CHAPTER 4: Using Flash Remoting Data in ActionScript . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
About Flash Remoting and data types . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
Understanding Action Message Format . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
Converting from ActionScript to application server data types . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
Converting from application server data types to ActionScript . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
ColdFusion to ActionScript data conversion issues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
About working with objects. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70
Working with ActionScript typed objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
Working withJava serializable objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
About working with RecordSet objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
About record sets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
RecordSet methods. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
Using RecordSet methods and properties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76
Delivering RecordSet data to Flash applications in ColdFusion MX . . . . . . . . . 81
Using Flash UI components with RecordSet objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
About working with XML. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85

Contents 5
CHAPTER 5: The NetConnection Debugger . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
Using the NetConnection Debugger . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
Enabling debugging . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
Disabling debugging. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89
NetConnection events. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89
Specific event information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89
Common event information. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
Client event messages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92
Application server event messages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
Flash Communication Server events . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94
Using the NetConnection Debugger in ActionScript. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94
Using the Netdebug.initialize() method . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
Using the NetDebug.trace() method. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
Using connection-specific debugging methods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
Configuring debugger output in ActionScript . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96
CHAPTER 6: Using Flash Remoting with ColdFusion MX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97
Using Flash Remoting with ColdFusion pages. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97
Determining the Flash service name . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97
Using the Flash scope to pass parameters to ColdFusion pages . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98
Accessing ActionScript objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101
Using Flash Remoting with ColdFusion components . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105
Determining the Flash service name . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105
Returning results to ActionScript . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106
Passing parameters to ColdFusion components. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106
Accessing ActionScript objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108
Using component metadata with the Flash Remoting service . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109
Using Flash Remoting with server-side ActionScript . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111
Using CF.http() . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111
Using CF.query() . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114
Calling web services from Flash Remoting. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115
Invoking web service methods using Flash Remoting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115
Securing access to ColdFusion from Flash Remoting. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116
Assigning security roles to component functions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117
Handling errors with ColdFusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117
CHAPTER 7: Using Flash Remoting for Java . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119
About Flash Remoting for Java . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120
How Flash Remoting for Java works . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120
Where Flash Remoting fits into the Java application architecture . . . . . . . . . . 120
Calling Java classes or JavaBeans from ActionScript. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121
Making a Java class or JavaBean available to Flash Remoting . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121
Getting a reference to a Java class or JavaBean in ActionScript . . . . . . . . . . . . 122
Invoking Java methods in ActionScript. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123
Looking at a Flash application that calls a JavaBean . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123

6 Contents
Calling Enterprise JavaBeans (EJBs) from Flash. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128
Getting a reference to an EJBHome object in ActionScript. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128
Invoking EJB methods in ActionScript. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128
Looking at a Flash application that calls an EJB . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129
Calling servlets and JSPs from Flash . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132
Coding a servlet to use with Flash Remoting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132
Getting a reference to a web application in ActionScript. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132
Calling a servlet or JSP . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133
Calling JMX MBeans from Flash (JRun only). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134
Getting a reference to an MBean in ActionScript . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135
Invoking MBean methods in ActionScript . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135
Calling server-side ActionScript from Flash (JRun only) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135
Getting a reference to a server-side ActionScript file . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136
Invoking server-side ActionScript functions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136
Handling function results in ActionScript . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137
Using Flash Remoting with JRun security . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139
Looking at the ActionScript authentication code . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139
Looking at the JRun security settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139
Passing XML objects between Flash and Java. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 140
Sending an ActionScript XML object to Java . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 140
Returning an XML object from Java to Flash . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141
Viewing Flash Remoting log entries. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141
CHAPTER 8: Using Flash Remoting for Microsoft .NET. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 143
Flash Remoting for Microsoft .NET . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 143
Where Flash Remoting fits into the Microsoft .NET framework . . . . . . . . . . 144
Understanding the Flash Remoting for Microsoft .NET directory structure . . 145
Setting up a Flash Remoting ASP.NET application. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146
Calling ASP.NET pages from Flash . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147
Making an ASP.NET page available to Flash Remoting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147
Getting a reference to an ASPX-based service in ActionScript. . . . . . . . . . . . . 147
Invoking ASPX pages in ActionScript. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 148
Using the Flash Remoting custom server control in ASPX pages. . . . . . . . . . . 149
Using the Flash Remoting namespace in code-behind files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 150
Using ASP.NET state management with Flash Remoting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151
Using ASP.NET exception handling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 152
Using ADO.NET objects with Flash Remoting. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153
Displaying a RecordSet object in Flash with ActionScript . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155
Calling web services from Flash . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 156
Invoking web service methods using Flash Remoting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157
Invoking a remote web service from Flash. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 158
Calling ASP.NET assemblies from Flash . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159
Calling assemblies from Flash . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159
Returning an ActionScript object from an assembly . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 160
Viewing Flash Remoting log entries. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 162

Contents 7
APPENDIX A: Using NetServices and Connection Classes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163
Creating a gateway connection using the NetServices object . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163
Specifying the gateway in the NetServices
createGatewayConnection() method . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 164
Using the NetServices setDefaultGatewayUrl() method . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 164
Authenticating a user to the application server . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165
Creating the service object . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 166
Handling results for a Connection object . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 167
Directing all results for a service to a single responder object . . . . . . . . . . . . . 167
Directing results for a service to specific responder objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 168
Handling errors for a Connection object . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169
The error object . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 170
Error-handling hierarchy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 170
Error-handling strategies. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171
INDEX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173

8 Contents

9
INTRODUCTION
About Flash Remoting
Macromedia Flash Remoting for Flash MX 2004 ActionScript 2.0 provides a communications
channel between Macromedia Flash applications and a wide range of business logic and data from
ColdFusion, Microsoft®.NET, Java, and Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP)-based web
services. Using Flash Remoting is intended for Macromedia Flash and application server developers
who want to build Rich Internet Applications.
This chapter contains the following sections:
•“Who should read this book” on page 9
•“About Flash Remoting documentation” on page 9
•“What’s new in Flash Remoting for Flash MX 2004 ActionScript 2.0” on page 10
•“Developer resources” on page 11
•“Contacting Macromedia” on page 12
Who should read this book
This book is intended for developers who have previous experience with Flash MX or
Flash MX 2004 and an application server, including Macromedia ColdFusion MX, Java,
or Microsoft .NET.
If you are not familiar with Macromedia Flash MX or Macromedia Flash MX 2004, read the
documentation set. If you are not familiar with application server development, read the
documentation included with your server.
About Flash Remoting documentation
The Macromedia Flash Remoting documentation is designed to provide support for the complete
spectrum of participants. Organized to help you quickly locate the information that you need, the
Flash Remoting documentation is provided in the Flash Help system. From the Help menu you
can open the Help panel or press F1 as a shortcut to access Flash Help. Then select Using Flash
Remoting or the Flash Remoting ActionScript Dictionary, depending on the information that
you are seeking.
Flash Remoting documentation is available in Acrobat format (PDF) on the Flash Remoting
product CD-ROM.

10 Introduction: About Flash Remoting
Use the following sources to help you understand and use the tools and technologies that Flash
Remoting encompasses.
•Flash MX 2004 Help is the comprehensive information source for all Flash MX 2004 features.
To open Flash MX 2004 Help in your browser, either select Help > Using Flash, or click the
Help button in any dialog box, or the question mark icon in inspectors, windows, and panels.
•The ActionScript Dictionary describes the syntax and use of ActionScript elements in
Macromedia Flash MX 2004 and Macromedia Flash MX Professional 2004. To access the
ActionScript Dictionary in Flash MX 2004, select Help > ActionScript Dictionary from the
Help menu.
•ColdFusion MX documentation is carefully crafted to assist you in every facet of ColdFusion
use. To access the ColdFusion MX documentation, activate the ColdFusion MX Administrator
and click the Documentation link.
For information on other application servers, see the documentation for those products.
What’s new in Flash Remoting for Flash MX 2004
ActionScript 2.0
Flash Remoting for Flash MX 2004 ActionScript 2.0 consists of the following two principal
features:
•The Remoting Connector component
The RemotingConnector component is a new component that allows you to work directly
with the new data binding features in Flash MX 2004 Professional. Simply drag the
RemotingConnector onto the Stage and use the Component inspector to set up schema and
bindings. In addition, the RemotingConnector component provides a simple API consistent
with other connectors found in Flash MX 2004 Professional.
For more information on using the Remoting Connector, see Chapter 2, “Using Flash
Remoting ActionScript,” on page 29.
•ActionScript 2.0 API
The Flash Remoting ActionScript API has been updated to comply with ActionScript 2.0. The
ActionScript 2.0 version of the API consists of the following significant features:
■Enforcement of strict data typing, which requires you to declare the data types of variables
and prohibits you from assigning different types of data to them.
■Enforcement of case sensitivity, which means that myvar and myVar are two different
variables, though they were considered the same variable with different spellings in
ActionScript 1.0.
■A new Service class, which allows you to create a gateway connection and at the same time
obtain a reference to a service and its methods. It includes the connection property, which
returns the connection and also allows you to set credentials for authorization on the remote
server.
Note: The NetServices class is still supported but has been deprecated in favor of the new
Service and Connection classes