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Controlling An Embedded Device Using Flash

Posted by Hemos on from the control-'em-all dept.

JimCricket writes "Art & Logic has just released a web server toolkit based on the open source GoAhead WebServer. The cool part is that it can communicate with Flash presentations using XML-RPC. The idea is to create GUI's to control embedded devices using Flash in addition to (or instead of) HTML. They've posted a little demo running on Windows, but in the real world the server would run on a low-power device. Seems like a great idea for the embedded world, given that Flash interfaces _can_ be very low-memory (as long as Flash designers stick to the vector-based graphics and ActionScript)."

4 of 174 comments (clear)

  1. If only Macromedia... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    ...would listen to its customers. We run one of Germany's largest flash-based web sites. We are happy with Flash and what it can do, but we encounter little bugs and annoyances every now and then.

    Macromedia doesn't fix them.

    To make things worse, the German product manager basically tells us "we don't have to fix this. We don't care. Without us, your site wouldn't exist. You better be grateful."

    If only there was an alternative to Flash to escape this.

    (Yadda, yadda, closed source, I know, I know. Trouble is, there is no alternative to Flash at this time.)

  2. Advantages by neksys · · Score: 3, Interesting

    The real advantages here aren't so much in the "hey neat" category, but in the application of this technology. Not all of us are all that efficient at gathering information from text logs or what have you - many of us are more visual. If I could have a small flash application based on this technology that used images or even sounds to say, help me visualize the load on each of my servers from home, great! Instead of browsing through several megs (or gigs) of logs, I just look for the image of the server on fire. It won't eliminate the need for "down and dirty" work, but I can certainly think of many examples of where it could minimize it.

  3. Take a look at XWT by Insig · · Score: 3, Interesting
    XWT

    For a lightweight interface system that talks XML-RPC/SOAP and is easy to port to other platforms.

    It's written in Java, but natively compiles on Linux/Win32. None of the speed problems of Java (thanks to a different design tack with Box rendering).

    Of course, the obvious advantage over Flash is the fact it's open source (GPL).

  4. Re:That word doesn't mean what you think it means by crisco · · Score: 3, Interesting
    Solution 1: Read the press release. Unless Macromedia has gone into the semiconductor business, they are using that vector animation technology you know and love.

    Solution 2: Yeah we know, it says so right there where JimCricket submitted it and Hemos posted it.

    --

    Bleh!