SharedObject Send Method

Question

In FMS i want to use Shared objects to send messages in a chat application because its in real time. My question is...How do you use Shared Objects to send messages back and forth to users in a live chat application? Would this require Server-side scripting, client or both?

Answer 1

You'll only need to write some code on the server-side for specific functionalities, such as security features (if not all the users can send messages for example).

On the client side, you need to:

• connect to the server;
• get the shared object from the server. If it does not exist when you ask for it, it will be created;
• add a listener on it for SyncEvent.

From there, every time a client will add, update or delete a property of the sharedObject using the setProperty() method, all the connected clients will receive a SyncEvent.

package
{
    import flash.events.Event;
    import flash.events.EventDispatcher;
    import flash.events.IEventDispatcher;
    import flash.events.NetStatusEvent;
    import flash.events.SyncEvent;
    import flash.net.NetConnection;
    import flash.net.SharedObject;

    public class Chat extends EventDispatcher
    {
        public var messages:Array;
        private var connection:NetConnection;
        private var chat_so:SharedObject;

        public function Chat()
        {
            super();
            connection = new NetConnection();
            connection.addEventListener(NetStatusEvent.NET_STATUS, onNetStatus);
            messages = [];
        }

        public function connect(uri:String):void
        {
            connection.connect(uri);
        }

        public function addMessage(value:String):void
        {
            chat_so.setProperty(messages.length.toString(), value);
        }

        private function setUpSharedObject():void
        {
            chat_so = SharedObject.getRemote("chat", connection.uri);
            chat_so.addEventListener(SyncEvent.SYNC, onSync);
            chat_so.client = this;
        }

        private function onNetStatus(event:NetStatusEvent):void
        {
            if (event.info.code == "NetConnection.Connect.Success")
            {
                setUpSharedObject();
            }
            else
            {
                trace(event.info.code + ": " + event.info.description);
            }
        }

        private function onSync(event:SyncEvent):void
        {
            for (var i:int = 0; i < event.changeList.length; i++)
            {
                var code:String = event.changeList[i].code;

                switch(code)
                {
                    case "change":
                    case "success":
                    {
                        messages.push();
                        dispatchEvent(new Event(Event.CHANGE));
                        break;
                    }
                    case "clear":
                    {
                        messages = [];
                        break;
                    }
                    case "delete":
                    default:
                    {
                        break;
                    }
                }
            }
        }
    }
}