Solution Summary

In review, MonkeyTongue was in need of an expense reporting application that would communicate with a back-end database from the Web, yet be available to its sales team members while they were not connected to the Internet. MonkeyTongue chose Vshift to prepare a solution.

How the Problem Was Solved

Vshift researched various means of solving MonkeyTongue's problem, and ultimately chose to utilize the Macromedia Flash MX and ColdFusion MX technologies. First Vshift studied how these products would integrate with each other, and then it put together an integrated solution using several of the features that where new to Flash MX and ColdFusion MX.

• Local Shared Objects This feature was used to allow local storage of expense reports when the user is offline. Local Shared Objects enable Flash MX to store native Flash objects (strings, arrays, objects, and so on) on the user's local machine. These objects persist even after the user has left the application.

• ColdFusion MX Components All of the ColdFusion code for this application was written in ColdFusion MX components (CFCs). This allowed the team to create several reusable database queries that were completely accessible by Flash MX.

• Flash MX UI Components This set of form components was one of the most useful features in Flash MX. In previous versions, the team would have had to create these form elements from scratch. The components used were ListBox, ComboBox, and PushButton.

• Flash MX UI Components Set 2 These additional Flash MX components are available from Macromedia's Web site, and are equally as useful as the components that are included with Flash MX. The team utilized the calendar and progress-bar UI components.

• Flash Remoting One of the greatest features of the new MX product line is ColdFusion MX's ability to handle native Flash MX objects through Flash Remoting. The team was able to utilize this feature to send complex arrays and objects from Flash to ColdFusion without having to do any complex conversions.

• Flash Authentication into ColdFusion MX The team was able to use this new feature in Flash MX to verify users against the new ColdFusion MX <CFLOGIN> authentication scheme. This was very helpful because the team did not have to deal with the client or session variable management they would have had to in the past.

These new features were implemented with great success. Vshift found that the Macromedia MX toolset gave them an excellent leg up in creating a robust Web application with a rich user interface. Had the team decided to build the application with other technologies, the process would undoubtedly have taken more hours than MonkeyTongue had allocated.

In the end, the application was a success, and the two companies are ready to work together to build out even more features using the Macromedia MX products.