Using Flash to display PHP variables

[INstormchaser]

Hello,
I'm hoping someone can offer some assistance with a perplexing problem I've run into.

I'm working on what you would probably call an intranet site, in which those who are logged in can see a list of usernames, of who else is logged in, and send them instant messages. To accomplish this, I'm using unix timestamps input to the user database, so that when a user leaves the system, it automatically stops showing them as logged in after their unix timestamp is more than a minute old (the timestamp gets refreshed every 30 seconds along with the list of users).

Well, I'm using meta refreshes to keep the list up to date, but I'd like to use a flash loop to do this, to get rid of the meta refreshing.

So, I'm trying to figure out how to get a looping flash movie to display the list of usernames, as links, where clicking the link brings up an instant message window. I've downloaded the FLA files from a couple of chat systems that use PHP, but they are file based, so I can't seem to make the connection between the looping SWF and the PHP/MYSQL script.

Has anyone done work with PHP/MYSQL that uses flash to display the results? I basically just need the SWF to load the results (in html format) and display them. Help would be much appreciated!

Thanks,
James Covington

[wilsonodk]

You'll need to do two different things.
First create the SWF to be able to call the variables
in ActionScript

//This would be on a movie clip, blank or otherwise
onClipEvent (load) {
  // You'll need some time based variables
  // to only check every thirty seconds
  // I'd personally look at: getTimer()
  var starttime = getTimer();
  var looptime = 30*1000; // 30 seconds in milliseconds
  var elapsedtime = 0; 
  // make sure and get your variable the first time
  loadVariables("usersLoggedIn.php","this");
}
onClipEvent (enterFrame) {
  // how much time has past
  elapsedtime = getTimer() - starttime;
  // Now check every 30 seconds
  if (elapsed >= looptime) {
    // then its is time to get thoose variables again
    loadVariables("usersLoggedIn.php","this");
    // we are starting over
    // so we increase the time to elapse by 30 seconds
    looptime = looptime+(30*1000);
  }
}

When using loadVariables(URL, target)
target is a string indicating the path to the movie clip or document level that the variables will be used
a more PHPish way to define the loadVariables()
loadVariable(string URL, string target [, string method])
the optional method argument is only used when sending the variables before retieving them
the only values are the string literals "POST" or "GET"

Then you need to create the PHP page that will make the variables

// This would be the usersLoggedIn.php page
// Start by making your connection to MySQL
// Then output your variables so that Flash can grab them,
// ie- they need URL encoding
echo "$myFirstVariable" . '=' . "$myFirstValue";
echo '&';
echo "$mySecondVariable" . '=' . "$mySecondValue";
// all this could be generated through a loop
// and it should be
// Also, no need for any HTML tags, they'll just get in the way.

HTH,
If you want more info about Flash and PHP try Ultrashock.
It's a Flash community site (built w/ php), and most Flash people like PHP,
where most PHP people don't like Flash 🙂
Check under their back-end programming forum for help with PHP/MySQL.

There are of course exceptions to every rule 😃

(edited for clarification)