Drupal And Flash Platform hybrid applications

Drupal and Flash Platformhybrid applications
Pacific North West Drupal Summit
10/24/2009
Josh Kopel

Hybrid application
Drupal provides a powerful way to source and manage data for SWF applications
Flash player provides a “rich” environment for advanced interactions
Multi-touch
Desktop migration (Air)
iPhone (!)

Flashgood or evil?

Why call it SWF
“Flash platform”
Anything that compiles to the SWF format for playback within the Flash Player
Flash
Flex
Flash has often meant animation. We are talking about true applications.

Quick demo

Overview of SWF Drupal
Drupal
Browser
Services Module
HTML Page
Server Module
Flash Player
Un/serialization
AS3 Application Code
Auth. Module
Un/Serialization
Classes
Service (Module)

Services means
Reusable data (SWF or AJAX)
Provide the same “site” to multiple client technologies
Data is available at either end in the same format via serialization
Objects
Arrays
Number types
Strings

The Drupal side
Services module
Authentication module(s)
Service module(s)
Server module(s)
External (un)serialize code (i.e. AMFPHP)

The Drupal side
Drupal
Services Module
Server Module
Un/serialization
Auth. Module
Service (Module)

Services Module An API for remote applications
Provides end point for service calls
Wraps server and service modules in a standard API
Supports multiple authentication methods*
*We can hazoauth?

Services Module core services
system
system.connect
file
file.get
file.getNodeFiles
menu
menu.get
node
node.get
node.view
node.save
node.delete
search
search.nodes
search.content
search.users
taxonomy
taxonomy.saveTerm
taxonomy.saveVocabulary
taxonomy.getTree
taxonomy.selectNodes
views
views.get
views.export
views.import

Server modules
Provide wrappers for specific languages or serialization methods
AMF (Adobe Message Format)
XMLRPC
JSON
REST
SOAP
etc.

Custom service modules
Provide access to any Drupal function
Provide SIMPLER access to nodes
Parse the data on the server side
Only send the data needed by the flash app

Authentication
API Keys
Make a unique key based upon an application name and domain
SWF must pass the hashed key back in order to authenticate
Key must be embedded in or passed to Flash player

Authentication
Session based
Use standard Drupal HTML login
Pull session ID into SWF
via javascript using flash.external.ExternalInterface
Via PHP using custom PHP
Use existing session for service calls

Authentication
Session based
Use system.connect() to return an anonymous session ID
Pass that back on any service call (logged in as anonymous)
Or call user.login with a username/password + session ID
Embedded
Requested
Receive a authenticated session ID

The SWF side
All calls brokered by the browser
Restricted by player security sandbox (learn about crossdomain.xml)
Receive startup parameters from flashVars
Manipulate DOM through externalInterface

The SWF side
Browser
HTML Page (DOM)
Flash Player
AS3 Application Code
Un/Serialization
Classes
Flash
Vars
JS

Development methodology
AS3 is “stateful”, asynchonous, & event driven
learn the language and use a good framework
pureMVC
robotlegs
Existing open source classes are available for almost any protocol

Review authentication needs
Do you need to save data or register users?
Can you request a username/password?
In html
In SWF

Review protocol choices
AMFPHP
Binary protocol means it is fast and compact
Not “human readable”
Adobe specific (natively parsed)
XML
Text based protocol can get verbose
Easier to debug
JSON
Text based protocol can get verbose
Can be easily consumed by AJAX or other services

Debugging
Get the debug player (www.adobe.com/support/flashplayer/downloads.html)
Charles Proxy (charlesproxy.com)
LiveHTTPHeaders (livehttpheaders.mozdev.org/)
Flash Tracer for FF (www.sephiroth.it/firefox/flashtracer/)

Serialization classes
AMFPHP – nl.dpdk.services.gephyrcomplete “high level” Drupal connection class using AMFPHP
AMFPHP – com.kylebrekke.amfphp
XMLRPC – com.mattism.http.xmlrpchttp://danielmclaren.net/2007/08/03/xmlrpc-for-actionscript-30-free-library
JSON – as3corlib http://code.google.com/p/as3corelib/

IDEs and compilers
Adobe Flash Professional CS4 (if you need timeline/library)
Adobe Flash Builder™ 4
Other Adobe products
Flex SDK complier
FlashDevelop (my favorite)
Eclipse-ant-Flex SDK
Komodo (with plugins)

Other resources
Essential ActionScript 3.0 by Colin Moock
Flash with Drupal by Travis Tidwell
OpenSource Flash http://osflash.org/