Using Communication Components > Using communication components overview

Using communication components overview

This chapter describes the communication components that are included with Macromedia Flash Communication Server MX 1.5.

Before you can be successful building your own application with communication components, you must be proficient in writing ActionScript for basic functionality such as connecting to the server; playing, publishing, and recording streams, and using shared objects. Components can help you develop applications quickly, but you need to understand the core concepts of Flash Communication Server and its applications first. Before you use components, read Getting Started and complete the tutorials and review the sample applications on the Flash Communication Server Welcome page.

When you start developing with components, Macromedia recommends that you read SimpleConnect component before learning about the other components. You may want to work through the example in RoomList component last, because it is the most advanced and requires additional server-side scripting.

Each section in this chapter discusses how to use the component and its scripting requirements (if any) and provides an example of an application you can create to test the component. Following each section on using a component is a section on the component's application programming interface (API), which describes the component's object and methods. Communication components are supported by Macromedia Flash Player 6 and later.

 
About the component framework

The communication components discussed in this chapter provide common functionality that you can use to quickly build applications with Flash Communication Server. These components are built on top of the Flash Communication Server component framework. You can use the framework to create your own components, or extend those included with Flash Communication Server.

For more information on the component framework see Understanding the component framework in the Macromedia Designer & Developer Center.