Is there a way to check the online status from an exe without theerror dialog?

[Andries van der Leij]

Hello flashers.


I'm working on a standalone app that can be installed from a CD. It contains

a lot of graphics, sounds, links to pdf's and such.

The whole thing is kind of static, as with most of the CD-rom projects off

course, but I would  really want to add more dynamic elements to the

project.

For instance I would want to offer my client to use a web form to fill a

database with news articles. The exe's checks that database by loading a PHP

script with "load variables" and replaces the old news item with the new one

when the user pushes the 'news' button.

The user must off course be online to make this possible. In director you

can make a fairly easy "online-checker" with the "DownLoadNetText" command

and with Flash you could do something simular:


-You upload a txtfile to yor server with the text: "online=true"


-In flash you use the load variables command to load this txt file:

Load variables (http://server/sometext.txt")


-Then a loop that checks the loaded variable for a certain amount of time.

If the loaded variable hasn't been received in let's say 15 seconds then

it's safe to assume that the user isn't online and you can send him to the

"old" news section or advise him to go online or whatever.


If /:online ne "true"...


The problem is that where this works fine in both Director and Flash, the

flash player always comes up with that irritating "the attempt to load

"http://...." failed". I find this very unprofessional and it makes it look

like the app has bugs or doesn't work..


I was wondering if there is a trick  to check the online status without the

dialog box from appearing...?


you would very much help me out if you know a possible solution!!


Thanks in advance,


Andries van der Leij