I would really like to see the power of databases and php code, implemented into a dynamic flash application. Has anyone tackled this subject. Can you point me in the right direction so I can do some more research on the subject.
Are you looking for anything specific? There are many examples of Flash-based, data-driven, applications (e.g. search engines, mash-ups, business applications, games, etc) on the web.
You can call external files and send values from Flash to php scripts and back and forth .. If you know action script it should make sense, if not look on Google for using php with Flash 9 or 10
I used to do this alot when I was working with flash alot. The easiest way to do this is with a mysql backend where PHP will write to the database (as with a normal CMS) and then collect the information into flash using xml. You can either parse an xml file on the fly from php or get a php page which appears as an XML file I have an example so just pm me and ill send you the link There are quite a few xml into flash tutorials and a few php into xml tutorials around It's really not complicated either, for instance a simple gallery could just be <gallery> <item> <image>myimage.jpg</image> <caption>This is an image</caption> </item> </gallery> Code (markup):
years ago i buyed a little flash website with phpscripts in the background to edit the content... but the phpscripts had have no security, no password etc... everybody could send a request to edit the content... there was only a password in flash for the content edit forms... hmm... maybe I should look if anybody is usind these flash cms today... a new free link source...
thanks alot for your input everyone, a big help on getting me in the right direction. I think XML is the solution I'm looking for to bridge the 2. I was trying to wrap around my head the concept of a flash homepage, where a community could interact together in various ways and have a sign-in feature with "registered content access" to special parts of the main flash app or a different flash secion that works with the community. IT would be a music-producer based site offering downloads and tutorials by me, I would just like to have a little something different as far as interaction. So I picked up flash hoping to make that interactivity, and I guess I have a whole lot more to learn to open a "multi-player" flash driven site, with Php and XHTML as the structure for holding the flash content. You say the security is bad huh? could you explain a little more on the security holes of doing this type of site..
I think the security issues are things like the way that people can decompile swf files unfortunately, they can see your code and see where your information is coming from. As your information is stored out in the open in XML files it's viewable by everyone unless you protect the content with session variables but even then you will have to have good debugging in flash to deal with those issues. I think that there are not that many more security risks than a normal PHP page and I think with a good amount of research you can overcome them all, good luck
There's no inherent security risk present in having the main site data XML files available to all (like the menu structure, page contents etc) unless you're specifically transmitting secure data, e.g. passwords - which you probably shouldn't be doing anyway The main problem comes when you want user-specific data passed (e.g. data relating to a specific user account) - for that you would need some more complex client-server communication
I meant if it was a sign-up service, the data available to those who have signed up will be available to both, sorry for the confusion