Re: FLASH: Flash and Databases: LONG

[francis acquaye]

Wayne:

flamethrower sounds exciting even though I am only now

getting my "programming" feet wet via Python.

Is Flamethrower something that I would be a ble to

digest now???


francis


--- Wayne Townsend <

waynetabsolute [dot] net

> wrote:

> Hi Matt,

> 

> Tell your client this:  The real beauty of using

> Flash for the front 

> end to a data base over html is that you don't have

> to redraw a page 

> when replying to the client, and you only transmit

> the needed data 

> back and forth, not html code, which makes it

> faster.  It's also a 

> better GUI for the client, because you're not

> redrawing "pages" all 

> the time.  They can look through lots of data and

> yet have the 

> feeling of staying in the same place, which they

> like since it's less 

> confusing.

> 

> The number of records is a matter for the

> CGI/database engine, not 

> the Flash client.

> 

> We're involved with a client who's needs are *very*

> similar to what 

> you describe. It's an extremely popular site, so

> they were looking 

> for a high-performance custom solution.

> 

> We use Mac G4/500s  with WebTen (Unix Apache).  The

> performance is 

> outstanding, and they are secure, and easy to set up

> and administrate.

> 

> For the CGI engine / Database, we use FlameThrower, 

> (http://www.incwell.com) which is a high-level

> language capable of 

> building just about any web app you can imagine.  It

> has it's own 

> internal database structure, which makes it very

> fast when you have a 

> lot of database actions to perform.  IOW, you don't

> have to go 

> outside the CGI to retrieve data.  This is good to

> about 100,000 

> records in a single data set, but you can have

> multiple data sets. 

> Beyond that, you can link it to external databases,

> including an NT 

> SQL database if you were so inclined.  Flame has an

> english-like 

> syntax, which makes it easy to learn and quick to

> develop with.  It's 

> a mature development tool, based on SuperCard, and

> the SuperTalk 

> language, which has been in use since '88, building

> commercial- 

> quality standalone double-click desktop

> applications.  Oh by the way, 

> the SuperTalk language is *ahem*, very similar to

> Director's *Lingo*. 

> Except of course that it was on the scene first and

> is quite a bit 

> more powerful today.  And just to stop any flames

> right here, I 

> should point out that to those old enough to

> remember, our beloved 

> Jon Gay, the Father of Flash, has roots in Silicon

> Beach, the 

> original company that developed Supercard/

> SuperTalk.  So it's not 

> like we really come from different camps or

> anything.

> 

> 

> At any rate, the Flash client can retrieve the data

> easily enough 

> from Flamethrower in real-time, and if needed, the

> Flame CGI can 

> write out text files that the Flash client can

> access.

> 

> If you use Flamethrower as your CGI engine, you

> won't have to know 

> much about how servers work in order to build very

> powerful server 

> apps.  Flame takes care of the dirty work for you,

> like html headers 

> and such.  And you won't have to spend weeks learing

> a cryptic 

> language.

> 

> Oh yeah, Flame is a multi-threaded language, which

> means that it 

> processes multiple calls at the same time.

> 

> 

> Now, here's how easy this is to do...

> 

> For example, lets say you have a situation where you

> need to pull up 

> an individual's contact info.

> 

> In your Flash client, you have text fields for the

> data, say, city, 

> phone number, and email address. (using this for

> simplicity's sake)

> 

> You will have named your fields in flash

> appropriately, city, phone, email.

> 

> You key for the lookup is "username".  And you have

> a field for that. 

> And a "get it" button (with a play action).

> 

> You are going to make flash send the call to the

> Flame CGI, and then 

> put it into a loop to wait for a response before

> moving on.  You can 

> use a simple variable to check for a response.  For

> example:

> 

> Set variable status = 0

> 

> As you'll see below, when Flame replies, it will set

> status to 1, and 

> that's what you're waiting for.

> 

> In the next frame you do a cgi call.  ie. A Load

> Variables action 

> that looks like this:

> 

> Load variables(theURL,"",vars=post)

> 

> Don't worry.  You don't have to do anything else. 

> Flash will send 

> all the variable on this timeline to the server. 

> This doen't get any 

> easier, does it?  ;)

> 

> In the next frame you set a looping label like

> "waitloop". Whatever.

> 

> In the next frame you do your conditional check:

> 

> If staus = 0 then goto and play "waitloop"

> 

> 

> On the server side, you have Flame running with a

> handler that looks like this:

> 

> on cgiEvent

> --first you parse out your lookup key:

> 	put cgiParamValue("username") into username

> 

> --then you go get that person's info:

> 	put card field "city"  of card username into city

> 	put card field "phone"  of card username into phone

> 	put card field "email"  of card username into email

> 

> --then you send it all back to flash with the status

> variable updated to 1

> 	cgiReply "status=1&city=" & city & "&phone=" &

> phone & 

> "&email=" & email

> 

> end cgiEvent

> 

> In about 2 seconds from the call, (depending on

> traffic), the 

> variables will pop into your Flash's fields, without

> you doing 

> *anything* else and the movie will go on, possibly

> back to your main 

> query point with a stop action.

> 

> I'm not kidding you, it's that straightforward and

> simple.  Voila, 

> you are now a server app programmer.  And you

> thought you were just a 

> "Flash Artist".  ;)

> 

> Seriously, without even cracking a book, if you just

> typed that 

> script into your project script in Flamethrower, it

> would work.  It 

> would take you about 30 minutes to do this whole

> project, Flash and 

> all.

> 

> 

> For the photos/images, you can create individual

> flash movies and 

> load them with a "Load Movie" command on top of your

> main Flash page 

> background.  The advantage of setting it up this way

> from the 

> beginning is that it becomes very extensible.  IOW,

> you can add all 

> kinds of stuff to what originally is just an image. 

> ie. more images, 

> etc, and you can even stream quality voice with the

> folks 

=== message truncated ===



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