Jimco Software Reviews - Macromedia Flash MX Professional and Macromedia Video Kit(continued)
Web Service Support in Flash
As we've already shown you, Flash isn't just for creating cute little animated graphics anymore. As we've demonstrated in this review, you can use Flash to create full-fledged, data-enabled applications. What we haven't shown you yet is that Flash includes the ability to call Web services! This is an exciting addition to Flash.
Using the Web Services panel (figure 12) in coordination with the WebServiceConnector component, you can add one or more URLs to connect to Web services. The panel shows the methods the Web service contains and the types of parameters and return values. In figure 12, we have connected to a public Web service located on a remote Web server. In a real-world scenario, this won't work out of the box because of security restrictions imposed by the Flash player. In order to call a Web service out of the box, the Web service will needs to be in the same domain as the Flash movie file. However, you can still call remote Web services using a policy file or a Web service proxy.
Figure 12 - The Web Services Panel
Want details? Macromedia has a great article on their Web site. Our preference for Web service technology is Microsoft's ASP.NET Web services, but Macromedia's documentation is PHP-centric. The same principles apply, however, and you'll get a lot our of this article no matter which technology you choose to use.
Conclusion
If you are interested in adding Flash content to your Web site, Flash is by far the best choice for you. It is easy enough for beginner's to use (although adding complex effects still has a steep learning curve), but more importantly, it has the power that you can grow into as your needs increase. Whether you need Flash for Web animations or full-featured applications delivered via the Flash player, Flash can meet all of your needs today and into the future. It's an investment that you'll find to be fun and productive at the same time!
Very Highly Recommended
Flash MX Professional 2004 and Macromedia Video Kit
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