Chapter 8. Shared Objects

Remote shared objects are used in FlashCom applications to do everything from sharing the position of spaceships in a game to broadcasting chat text messages. They are a good way to keep track of what users are doing in a conference, let movies know what streams are available, and allow users to disconnect and reconnect to an application without losing track of the application's state.

Shared objects are an extension of ActionScript objects that allow objects to be shared by more than one movie and to be stored for later use. Local shared objects (LSOs) can be stored and retrieved locally by Flash movies between sessions and, under some circumstances, by more than one movie. Remote shared objects (RSOs) can be shared in real time by Flash movies connected to the FlashCom Server. When one movie changes a property of its copy of an RSO, updates are sent automatically to all the other movies sharing the same object. RSOs can be stored locally and on the FlashCom Server. RSOs have a send( ) method similar to NetStream objects that can be used to broadcast messages to every movie connected to a shared object.