Flash server-side Shared Objects - LSOs

Question

The Adobe docs (I can't find which) state that Flash can read Shared Objects (.SOL files?) off a server. This could be an interesting way to store data and retrieve it client-side. Any ideas on how to do this?

Answer 1

Firstly, .SOL files and LocalSharedObject are purely, as their name implies, local datas. They are stored on the client, not on the server, and could be compared to cookies, or save files. But they are not server-side.

If you want to store data on the server and retrieve it client-side, you have a lot of techniques, depending on what you want/can install on your server.

The most obvious one certainly is using a web-service in the language of your choice, and access it via your Flash application.

You can also use ActionScript Remoting capabilities to call server-side methods to store and retrieve objects. You have to find the proper library for your language. AMFPHP is the reference for php, I know some library also exists for .NET and Java. Here is an example using php

Finally, you can use Flash Media Server which is a proprietary Adobe technology. I don't have much experience with it, but you should be able to find useful ressources here