Technology Map

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I produced Figure 3.11 as an attempt to represent all the different topics covered in this book. It's impossible to cover them all at once. The idea is that you'll be able to refer back to this "big picture" from any part in the book. At the start of each chapter, I include a version of this map with an indication of "you are here." Hopefully, this helps you keep your bearings and reduces the need to continually explain how things fit together.

Figure 3.11. This figure attempts to show nearly every technology discussed in this book.

Let me walk you through this image. At the top center, you have Flash authoring where you basically create SWFs that play within the browser (directly below). The bottom center signifies how a user can interface using a mouse, keyboard, or webcam and mic. Any standard SWF can take user input and, through programming, perform operations inside the movie (shown right below Flash authoring).

Flash can also reach out. The simplest manner is by launching new windows or affecting the browser in other ways, but primarily using JavaScript. In addition, you can connect a SWF to the Flash Communication Server (top right). These connections are persistent, so every connected user can remain synchronized. Another way for Flash to reach out is to make requests to (and handle replies from) application servers (right). This is achieved either through standard GET/POST, Flash Remoting, or SOAP. I show ColdFusion, but nearly any application server will work. (Incidentally, Flash Communication Server can also use Flash Remoting and thus reduce the total bandwidth, compared to having each client make requests .) The fact you can send and receive data from an application server means you've got access to the whole worldboth local databases and remote web services.

Finally, on the far left you have Macromedia Central. In many ways, this is really just a customized browser that plays Flash movies. Because you have additional privileges to bypass certain security limits as well as control over what gets cached for offline access, however, I think it's worth representing. I really think Macromedia Central is cool, but it's not like there are many additional technical concerns. The biggest issues involve application designthat is, what sort of features can you incorporate in Central that you can't in other places? For this book, I periodically mention how Central fits into a particular topic, but this isn't a Central book per se .

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