Question

I’m currently writing a webcam program (like in Facebook’s profile picture) in AS3 and I would like to be able to save the drawn picture to the server when clicking a button on my site. Is there any way of doing this? Do I need to create a socket or is there an easier way of doing it?

Pierre

Answer 1

The Flash plugin runs on the client, the PHP script runs on the server. You always have to establish some kind of remote connection between the two. Using a client side button to start a server side script that triggers a client side function to send data to the server seems quite unpractical, but it is certainly possible.

The way I see it, there are basically four ways to implement the functionality you want:

1. When the button is pressed, use ExternalInterface to call a Flash method and retrieve the image data as ByteArray via JavaScript, then connect to your PHP script via AJAX.

2. Use ExternalInterface to trigger a Flash method that connects directly to the PHP script and sends the image data as ByteArray via URLLoader (without AJAX).

3. Establish a socket connection from the Flash content, then use ExternalInterface and JavaScript to trigger a Flash method, which then sends the image through the socket.

4. Establish a socket connection from the Flash content, then add an event listener to listen to an event that is sent from the server when the button is pressed, and trigger a Flash method that then sends the image to the server.

In addition to the client-server-client problem I mentioned above, I would strongly advise against socket connections, unless you have highly interactive or time critical content, such as chats or multiplayer games (you bind your server’s resources during the entire time a user is on the page). If all you need is to create a single connection to send the data, use either 1. or 2.