Category Archives: Best of Flex Utillity

Yup, Quite interesting isn’t it ?

Mission: Validate URL Existance on client side.

Expected Result: Anyhow create POC of a code with the efforts to check the possibility of verifying URL existence from Flex i.e. from client side only.

Result: . I think i managed to crack it with a simple solution, When code not deployed works very smooth and gives result as expected.

On Local Environment Without server deployment of code

Result is great !

But at last Buck Stops at “Security Sandbox Error” when we deployed it on to the server.

Path Followed:

Knowing flash.net package : The flash.net package contains classes for sending and receiving from the network, such as URL downloading and Flash Remoting.

http://www.adobe.com/livedocs/flash/9.0/ActionScriptLangRefV3/flash/net/package-detail.html

Understand HTTP response status meanings

http://www.w3.org/Protocols/rfc2616/rfc2616-sec10.html

With Some 2-3 days reading i just went on to build one example with URL existence verification application.

If Somebody is intrested to solve this puzzle, take the below code.

Project Hierarchy:

src-assets-HttpCodes.xml

src-ValidateURL.mxml

Lets Walk Through the code, I am sure the written code is pretty simple to understand so wont be elaborating it.

Code for “ValidateURL.mxml“

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<mx:Application xmlns:mx="http://www.adobe.com/2006/mxml"
xmlns:net="flash.net.*"
layout="absolute"
creationComplete="httpIOError.send();">

<mx:Script>
<![CDATA[

import mx.controls.Alert;
import mx.utils.ObjectUtil;
import mx.collections.ArrayCollection;
import mx.rpc.events.ResultEvent;
import mx.rpc.events.FaultEvent;
import flash.net.*;

private var httpCode:int;

private var errorCodesAC:ArrayCollection = new ArrayCollection();

private function loadURL():void
{
var urlReq:URLRequest = new URLRequest('http://'+ urlString.text);
urlStream.load(urlReq);
}

private function checkUrl(e:HTTPStatusEvent):void
{
httpCode=e.status;
}

private function ioErrorHandler(e:IOErrorEvent):void
{
for(var i:int=0;i<errorCodesAC.length;i++)
{
if(httpCode==errorCodesAC[i].number)
{
responseText.text = "Status Code: "+httpCode.toString() + "\nError Details: \n"+errorCodesAC[i].details;
}
}
}

private function returnSuccess(e:Event):void
{
responseText.text = "Status Code: "+httpCode.toString() + "\nURL is valid."
}

private function securityErrorHandler(e:SecurityErrorEvent):void
{
Alert.show(ObjectUtil.toString(e),"Security Error Details");
}

private function faultHandler(e:FaultEvent):void
{
Alert.show(ObjectUtil.toString(e));
}

private function resultHandler(e:ResultEvent):void
{
errorCodesAC = e.result.HttpStatus.statusCodes.statusCode
}

]]>
</mx:Script>

<mx:HTTPService id="httpIOError" url="assets/HttpCodes.xml" result="resultHandler(event)" fault="faultHandler(event)"/>

<net:URLStream  id="urlStream"  complete="returnSuccess(event)" httpStatus="checkUrl(event)"
ioError="ioErrorHandler(event)" securityError="securityErrorHandler(event)" />

<mx:Label x="135" y="30" text="Enter Url to be validated:"/>
<mx:Button x="321" y="84" label="Check URL" click="loadURL()"/>
<mx:TextInput id="urlString"  x="288" y="28"/>
<mx:Text x="288" y="58" text="eg: www.shashankkulkarni.wordpress.com"/>
<mx:TextArea  id="responseText" x="135" y="133" height="93" width="414" editable="false" wordWrap="true"/>
<mx:Label x="135" y="107" text="Response Description:"/>
</mx:Application>

 “HttpCodes.xml” is as below

<HttpStatus>

<statusCodes>

<statusCode number="400">
<details>
Unable to understand request.[Bad Request]
</details>
</statusCode>

<statusCode number="401">
<details>
User authentication required. [Unauthorized Request]
</details>
</statusCode>

<statusCode number="403">
<details>
Server refuses the response. [Forbidden Request]
</details>
</statusCode>

<statusCode number="404">
<details>
Page Not Found. [Page Not Found ]
</details>
</statusCode>

<statusCode number="407">
<details>
Proxy Authentication required. [Proxy Authentication]
</details>
</statusCode>

<statusCode number="408">
<details>
Request failed to reach server within specified time. [Request Timeout]
</details>
</statusCode>

<statusCode number="500">
<details>
Unexpected condition occured. [Internal Server Error]
</details>
</statusCode>

<statusCode number="501">
<details>
Functionality required is not supported. [Functionality not supported]
</details>
</statusCode>

<statusCode number="502">
<details>
Invalid response received by server. [Bad Gateway]
</details>
</statusCode>

<statusCode number="503">
<details>
Service is not available temporarily.[Service Unavailable]
</details>
</statusCode>

<statusCode number="504">
<details>
Timely response not received. [Gateway Timeout]
</details>
</statusCode>

<statusCode number="0">
<details>
Input stream is not well Formatted [IOError]
</details>
</statusCode>

<statusCode number="200">
<details>
Yes! This URL exists. [Success]
</details>
</statusCode>

</statusCodes>

</HttpStatus>

I gone through details of Sandbox Security restriction with Flash player ( http://www.adobe.com/devnet/flashplayer/articles/flash_player_9_security.pdf ) but unfortunatly could not solve it to success,  i really feel this should have been done from Flex itself.

I would have been happy to see it working, But I guess some more understanding is needed on my part. I am still finding the missing things.

There must be some way to DO it ???? Still searching the answer, If some body finds it… Just ping it down here. I will be glad to resolve it.

Any suggestions are welcomed.

Best Luck & Happy coding

Thanks and regards

Shashank Kulkarni

Feel free to comment on the post

Hello All,

FullScreen Application in Flex,, Yup sounds very interesting…

It has been one of our project requirement , I did it quite long days ago, So I thought why not put this thing here on blog so if somebody faces any problem with it he can use this code … Why Not?

Before proceeding  as you makes your new project goto your HTML wrapper i.e.

index.template.html . Now

Step 1.

In the script section add comman (,) in last property of AC_FL_RunContent function and add the line

“allowFullScreen”, “true”

Also in <object> tag add

<param name=”allowFullScreen” value=”true” />

Property so that we can avoid upcoming Security error.

Step 2. Add the following code

private var flag:Boolean = false;

private function clickHandler(e:Event):void

{

if(flag==false)

{

flag=true;

stage.displayState = StageDisplayState.FULL_SCREEN;

}

else if(flag==true)

{

flag=false;

stage.displayState = StageDisplayState.NORMAL;

}

}

Now Stage Class:– The Stage class represents the main drawing area. i.e it represents the entire area where Flash content is shown.

Also important thing is that

We don’t create object of this class as obj:Stage=new Stage();

The Stage object is not globally accessible. You need to access it through the stage property of a DisplayObject instance

Most importantly we use

displayState : A value from the StageDisplayState class that specifies which display state to use . so this is how it should look as below

This is small code of sweet Fulscreen Player Application sample application… Do check it its muska…Really J

<?xml version=”1.0″ encoding=”utf-8″?>

<mx:Application xmlns:mx=”http://www.adobe.com/2006/mxml” layout=”absolute” backgroundColor=”#000000″>

<mx:Script>

<![CDATA[

import mx.collections.ArrayCollection;

[Bindable]

private var arrList:ArrayCollection = new ArrayCollection([{Label:'Central Beer',Path:'assets/get_video1111.flv'},{Label:'Clinton',Path:'assets/Clinton.flv'},{Label:'Banned Ad',Path:'assets/bannedAd.flv'},{Label:'Love',Path:'assets/get_video.flv'},{Label:'Darling',Path:'assets/get_video2.flv'},{Label:'Just Call US',Path:'assets/get_video3.flv'}])

private var flag:Boolean = false;

private function clickHandler(e:Event):void

{

if(flag==false)

{

flag=true;

stage.displayState = StageDisplayState.FULL_SCREEN;

}

else if(flag==true)

{

flag=false;

stage.displayState = StageDisplayState.NORMAL;

}

}

]]>

</mx:Script>

<mx:LinkButton label=”Full Screen” id=”btnTest” click=”clickHandler(event)” y=”0″ height=”16″ fontSize=”13″ color=”#ffffff” width=”109″/>

<mx:VideoDisplay id=”vduSong” x=”0″ y=”24″  width=”100%” height=”100%” source=”{cmbSongList.selectedItem.Path}”/>

<mx:ComboBox id=”cmbSongList” x=”259″ y=”-1″ dataProvider=”{arrList}” labelField=”Label”></mx:ComboBox>

<mx:Label x=”120″ y=”-1″ text=”Currently Playing ” color=”#ffffff” fontSize=”14″/>

</mx:Application>

Thanks and Regard

Shashank Kulkarni

Feel free to mail me shashank.pawan@gmail.com