Speaking with ASP.NET

ActionSpeak™ extends Flash, allowing it to interact with 2 core aspects of ASP.NET development:

Calling .NET functions by triggering Postback Events. ( Requires ActionSpeak™)
DataBound Flash: Interpreting Data from XML, Sitemap and Database DataBindings in Flash. ( Enhanced by ActionSpeak™)

Event Triggering (ASP.NET 2.0+ only)

To call .NET (e.g.: C#, VB.NET, etc) functions from Flash we need to trigger a PostBack Event which causes the page to reload.

Triggering an ASP.NET Event using ActionScript

To fire an ASP.NET Event, call the "FormPostBack" ActionScript Function:

[ActionScript]

ActionSpeak.FormPostBack (eventName, argument)

Creating the .NET Event

This must then be wired up to a Postback Event in your ASPX page’s code-behind. Double click on your ASPNetFlash WebControl in design mode to create the ActionScriptEvent handler.

ASP.Net Flash Event WireUP

[C#]

protected void Flash1_ActionScriptEvent (object sender, ActionScriptEventArgs e)
{
   string eventName = e.EventName;
   string eventArgument = e.EventArgument;
   //Your Code Here
}

The eventName and argument strings are passed from ActionScript to the ASP.NET Event. They are used to differentiate between different postback actions – as there may be more than one type of event you wish to fire in ASP.NET.

e.g.: Multiple Flash buttons could be wired to different C# or VB.NET code.

DataBinding

XML Data

The DataSource property of your ASP.NET web control creates a binding to a data source object. That data is serialized to XML, and passed into Flash as _root.aspnetflash_XML

This XML data is also available as an XML Object as ActionSpeak.XML.

There are excellent resources on parsing ActionScript XML objects in the Adobe ActionScript Dictionary.

It is wise to use the ASPNetFlash DebugMode to get an example value of this variable early on in your project to allow for the Flash to be developed offline.

AD.Net to Flash Data Binding of SQL and XML Sources

An example of the XML passed into Flash as a DataBinding would set _root.aspnetflash_XML and ActionSpeak.XML to:

[XML]

<recordset name="DefaultView">
<record num="0"><ProductID>1</ProductID><CategoryName>Beverages</CategoryName><ProductName>Chai</ProductName><UnitPrice>18</UnitPrice></record>
<record num="1"><ProductID>2</ProductID><CategoryName>Beverages</CategoryName><ProductName>Chang</ProductName><UnitPrice>19</UnitPrice></record>
<record num="2"><ProductID>3</ProductID><CategoryName>Condiments</CategoryName><ProductName>Aniseed Syrup</ProductName><UnitPrice>10</UnitPrice></record>
</recordset>

RecordSets

If your ASPNetFlash DataSource is a SQLDataSource or AccessDataSource – then you can also access this data as a RecordSet in ActionScript.

ActionSpeak.RecordSet.Records[recordNumber][fieldName] - retrieves field values from a database record.
ActionSpeak.RecordSet.Fields - an array of the possible values if fieldName.

E.g.:

[ActionScript]

ActionSpeak.RecordSet.Records[0]["ProductID"];

The following code passes though the RecordSet - iterating every field in every record. This can be used as the prototype for any RecordSet parsing algorithm.

[ActionScript]

//Prototype Recorset Parser
for (var index = 0; index<
ActionSpeak.RecordSet.Records.length; index++) {
  var RecordNumber = index;
  var CurrentRecord = ActionSpeak.RecordSet.Records[index];
  ActionSpeak.Trace("\n# Record: "+RecordNumber);
  ActionSpeak.Trace("================================");
  for (fieldindex=0; fieldindex<ActionSpeak.RecordSet.Fields.length; fieldindex++) {
  var FieldName = ActionSpeak.RecordSet.Fields[fieldindex];
  var FieldValue = CurrentRecord[FieldName];
  ActionSpeak.Trace(FieldName+"="+FieldValue);
        }                     
  }

Data can also be passed into Flash as FlashVariables.