With support for both Adobe AIR™ and Adobe Flash Player™, Ice developers can now deploy robust networked applications to an ever-growing range of target platforms.
Overview
Installed in nearly 99% of all browsers, Adobe Flash Player is one of the most ubiquitous run-time environments in the market today. Together with Adobe AIR, whose target platforms include desktops, mobile devices, and smart appliances such as televisions, ActionScript developers have an enormous opportunity for delivering rich, interactive, and network-aware applications.
Using the freely available Flex SDK, developers can easily start building sophisticated ActionScript content that leverages the full range of features that Ice for ActionScript has to offer. For developers who work in Adobe Flash Builder, ZeroC provides a plug-in that automates the translation of your Slice files and manages the resulting generated code. Click on the screen image below to see Flash Builder in action as it highlights a compilation error in a Slice file:
Ice for ActionScript includes several sample programs that demonstrate how to write networked ActionScript applications with Ice, including:
- Callback
- The callback example shows how an AIR program can receive callbacks using the server-side features of Ice for ActionScript. The example includes its own local ActionScript server, or you can elect to use an external server.
- Hello
- The hello client is a more elaborate version of the classic Hello World example. This AIR program allows you to send a request to the server using one of the various Ice invocation models, and includes settings that let you simulate a delay in the server and learn how Ice handles timeout situations.
- Chat
- The chat client gives Flash users access to our chat application. This program is especially instructive for ActionScript developers because it makes use of Ice's bidirectional connection facility that lets an application receive "push notifications" from remote servers.
Feature Highlights
- Robust Ice run time with support for all Slice types
- Support for TCP, UDP, and outgoing SSL
- Asynchronous invocation model
- Server-side support, so AIR applications can act as servers
- Support for push applications via bidirectional connections, so remote servers can invoke operations on objects implemented in an ActionScript program, even in the presence of firewalls
- Full interoperability with existing Ice applications, written in any supported language and running on any supported operating system
- Flash Builder plug-in to manage your Slice files and streamline your development process
- Compatible with AIR 2, AIR 3, Flash Player 10, and Flash Player 11
What You Need
Here is what you will need to get started with Ice for ActionScript:
- A Flash, AIR, or Flex development environment
- An installation of Ice for ActionScript
- The Slice2as Flash Builder plug-in, which simplifies the translation of Slice files for Flash Builder users
Licensing
Ice for ActionScript is available under the terms of the GNU General Public License v2 (GPLv2) and also under commercial licenses. If you distribute an application that uses Ice for ActionScript licensed under GPL to a third party, your application is also subject to the terms and conditions of the GPL. If an application executes in a third-party's web browser, you are distributing this application to the third party, even if the third party does not explicitly download or install this application on his or her computer. For more information on licensing, please see the full text of our Ice for ActionScript license or contact info@zeroc.com.