Data from Flash interface

March 1, 2005 8:37 PM

How can I get data from a Flash interface-based web page? e.g. When I click on an item in the interface, is there anyway to get info on what was selected, etc? For example, on http://homestarrunner.com/sbemail.html, how can I get the data on which selection was made from the list? I'd like to take that data into a PHP app and do something with it elsewhere.
posted by noahv to computers & internet (4 comments total)

Unless you have access to the server logs, I can't think of a way this is possible. Even with access to the logs, the Flash interface may not report referring URL information to the server.
posted by pmbuko at 9:17 PM on March 1, 2005

Using Flash Remoting.
posted by AlexReynolds at 9:36 PM on March 1, 2005

First of all, I'm assuming you're using homestarrunner as an example, and you are doing this on a site you maintain.

I don't know the first thing about flash, but I am pretty sure flash can direct the browser to a new url. My first reaction would be to load your php script in an invisible frame with the menu selection as a url paramter i.e. http://mysite.com/menuhandler.php?menu_option=3

Someone else with more actual knowledge will have to comment on whether this hair-brained scheme is actually possible in flash, and why something else would be much better.
posted by recursive at 9:37 PM on March 1, 2005

I'll pretty much second what recursive said, you just load a PHP script URL from Flash. The really hip way would be to use XML-RPC so it can stream data to PHP live instead of calling a script for every click but that would require Flash calling Javascript on the host page, which I don't know if it can.
posted by abcde at 10:03 AM on March 2, 2005