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how do you allow javascript communications with Flex/Flash/Actionscript

Well here's a problem.
I've got a website with large javascript backend. This backend talks to a server over a socket with a socket bridge using http://blog.deconcept.com/swfobject/
The socket "bridge" is a Flex/Flash .swf application/executable/plugin/thing for which the source is missing.
I've got to change it.
More facts:
file appExePluginThing.swf
appExePluginThing.swf Macromedia Flash data (compressed), version 9
I've used https://www.free-decompiler.com/flash/ to decompile the .swf file and I think I've sorted out what's the original code vs the libraries and things Flash/Flex built into it.
I've used FDT (the free version) to rebuild the decompiled code into MYappExePluginThing.swf so I can run it with the javascript code and see what happens.
I'm here because what happens isn't good. Basically, my javascript code (MYjavascript.js) gets to the point where it does
window.log("init()");
var so = new SWFObject("flash/MYappExePluginThing.swf"", socketObjectId, "0", "0", "9", "#FFFFFF");
window.log("init() created MYappExecPluginThing!!!");
so.addParam("allowScriptAccess", "always");
log("init() added Param!!");
so.write(elId);
log("init() wrote!");
IE9's console (yeah, you read that right) shows
init()
created MYappExecPluginThing!!!
init() added Param!!
init() wrote!
but none of the debugging i've got in MYappExePluginThing.as displays and nothing else happens.
I'm trying to figure out what I've screwed up/what's going on? Is MYappExePluginThing.as running? Is it waiting on something? Did it fail? Why aren't the log messages in MYappExePluginThing.as showing up?
The first most obvious thing is I'm using FDT which, I suspect, was not used to build the original. Is there some kind of magic "build javascript accessible swf thing" in FlashBuilder or some other IDE?
First noteworthy thing I find is:
file MYappExePluginThing.swf
MYappExePluginThing.swf Macromedia Flash data (compressed), version 14
I'm using Flex 4.6 which, for all I know, may have a completely different mechanism for allowing javascript communication than was used in appExePluginThing.swf
Does anyone know if that's true?
For example, when FDT runs this thing (I can compile but FDT does not create a .swf unless i run it) I get a warning in the following method:
private function init() : void
{
Log.log("console.log", "MYappExePluginThing init()");
//var initCallback:String = Application.application.parameters.initCallback?Application.application.parameters.initCallback:"MYjavascript.MYappExePluginThing_init";
var initCallback:String = FlexGlobals.topLevelApplication.parameters.initCallback?FlexGlobals.topLevelApplication.parameters.initCallback:"MYjavascript.MYappExePluginThing_init";
try
{
ExternalInterface.addCallback("method1Callback",method1);
ExternalInterface.addCallback("method2Callback",method2);
ExternalInterface.call(initCallback);
}
catch(err:Error)
{
Log.log("console.log", "MYappExePluginThing init() ERROR err="+err);
}
}
I got a warning that Application.application was deprecated and I should change:
var initCallback:String = Application.application.parameters.initCallback?Application.application.parameters.initCallback:"MYjavascript.MYappExePluginThing_init";
to:
var initCallback:String = FlexGlobals.topLevelApplication.parameters.initCallback?FlexGlobals.topLevelApplication.parameters.initCallback:"MYjavascript.MYappExePluginThing_init";
which I did but which had no effect on making the thing work.
(FYI Log.log() is something I added:
public class Log{
public static function log(dest:String, mssg:String):void{
if(ExternalInterface.available){
try{
ExternalInterface.call(dest, mssg);
}
catch(se:SecurityError){
}
catch(e:Error){
}
}
trace(mssg);
}
}
)
Additionally, in MYjavascript.js MYappExePluginThing_init looks like this:
this.MYappExePluginThing_init = function () {
log("MYjavascript.js - MYappExePluginThing_init:");
};
Its supposed to be executed when MYappExePluginThing finishes initializing itself.
Except its not. The message is NOT displaying on the console.
Unfortunately, I cannot find any references explaining how you allow javascript communication in Flex 4.6 so I can check if I've got this structured correctly.
Is it a built in kind of thing all Flex/Flash apps can do? Is my swf getting accessed? Is it having some kind of error? Is it unable to communicate back to my javascript?
Does anyone have any links to references?
If this was YOUR problem, what would you do next?

(Not a full solution but I ran out of room in the comment section.)
To answer your basic question, there's nothing special you should need to do to allow AS3-to-JS communication beyond what you've shown. However, you may have sandbox security issues on localhost; to avoid problems, set your SWFs as local-trusted (right-click Flash Player > Global Settings > Advanced > Trusted Location Settings). I'm guessing this not your problem, though, because you'd normally get a sandbox violation error.
More likely IMO is that something is broken due to decompilation and recompilation. SWFs aren't meant to do that, it's basically a hack made mostly possible due to SWF being an open format.
What I suggest is that you debug your running SWF. Using break-points and stepping through the code you should be able to narrow down where things are going wrong. You can also more easily see any errors your SWF is throwing.

Not really an answer, but an idea to get you started is to start logging everything on the Flash side to see where the breakage is.
Since you're using IE, I recommend getting the Debug flash player, installing it, then running Vizzy along side to show your traces.
Should give you a good idea of where the app is breaking down.
Vizzy
Debug Player

Web Workers for Parsing Raw Input in Chrome Packaged Calculator App

I am currently working on a calculator that will run as a packaged (desktop) chrome app. I am using the math.js library to parse math input. This is my old code:
evaluate.js:
var parser = math.parser();
function evaluate(input){
$("#output").text(parser.eval(input));
}
However, if the input is something unreasonable like 6234523412368492857483928!, the app just freezes, because it is trying to evaluate the input. I know that math.js is still in beta so eventually there might be a fix (overflow errors), but I couldn't find any other library that parses raw input the way math.js does.
To fix this, I am trying to fix this using web workers to run it asynchronously. Here is the code that I have right now:
main.js
var evaluator = new Worker('evaluate.js');
evaluator.addEventListener('message', function(e){
$("#output").text(e.data);
}, false);
function evaluate(input){
evaluator.postMessage(input);
}
evaluate.js
var parser = math.parser();
function mathEval(input){
return parser.eval(input);
}
self.addEventListener('message', function(e){
self.postMessage(mathEval(e.data));
});
However, this doesn't work when I run it. Also, I noticed that when I use web workers, it throws the error Uncaught ReferenceError: math is not defined - evaluate.js:1, but it didn't throw this error with the old code.
Questions: Why doesn't this code work to evaluate the input? Is it possible to use multiple workers to speed it up? If I wanted to implement some sort of overflow error for when the worker takes more than 2 seconds, what would be the best way to go about doing it? Finally, is there a better way to do this?

Web Workers are run in totally separate context. They don't have access to the objects from parent web page. If you want to use math.js you have to import it into the worker using importScript.
I recommend to read Using Web Workers guide, part "Importing Scripts And Libraries" which describes how to do it, and how it works in detail.

Ideas needed. Javascript+XPCOM+C++ add-on

So, there is a WebRTC inside Firefox and there is a convenient class for making RTC communication possible called RTCPeerConnection which can be instantiated and used from the JavaScript app. You can find some decent example of it on [1].
And here am I with my custom transport (if you're interested - [2]) would like to use it for RTC communication. Briefly, I need to "substitute" the transport layer of WebRTC engine by my custom transport while providing the same RTCPeerConnection-like JavaScript interface for the user. And preferably, it should not look like custom build of Firefox (no patches).
So I've come up with the idea of extension, which will be written in C++ (since it need to be linked with WebRTC library and my custom transport library) and somehow will expose its interface to Javascript. And I've found XPCOM which, as I thought, can provide me this.
So I've started to fight with out-dated and sparsed info on this topic and after 3 days of struggling finally ended up with builded add-on. Unfortunately, I can't access it from Javascript, because of Javascript's "Components.classes is undefined" error. And it seems that there is no way to access it at all. Or I'm wrong on that?
Here is Javascript:
function check()
{
console.debug("checking...");
const {Cc,Ci,Cu} = require("chrome");
var rtc = Components.classes["#named-data.net/ndnrtc;1"].createInstance();
rtc = rtc.QueryInterface(Ci.ndINrtc);
console.debug("rtc: "+rtc);
}
My component is visible with XPCOM Viewer addon and the code above I can execute in the console while empty page is open in Firefox.
Given all that, I would like to ask Firefox experts regarding possible approaches which I can take in order to implement my idea.
Thank you in advance
1 https://apprtc.appspot.com/
2 http://named-data.net

Finally, I've figured out one possible solution for that and describe it in my post

Windows XP and Up: JavaScript instead of VBScript?

I asked how to check modify timestamps with BAT files and launch a command based on an if statement and Wimmel asked if I could use VBScript instead of Batch Files. I think this is a grand idea. This leads to another question
Can I access the VBScript functionality with JavaScript, while still being compatible Windows XP to Current? (specifically checking file modify timestamp and running a command depending on how recently modified)

Not sure that it is a good idea, but yes, you can use JavaScript (actually, JScript) instead of VBScript. Just use ActiveXObject class instead of CreateObject function that is used in VBScript to create objects.
Here is a code that reads the file modify timestamp using Windows Scripting and JScript:
var o = new ActiveXObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject");
var file = o.GetFile("c:\\temp\\test.js");
WScript.Echo(file.DateLastModified);
For more information, see JScript documentation and Windows Script Host documentation

Even though there are probably easier ways to achieve what you want to do, I had a go at trying the more theoretical part of your question, and apparently all the things we need are there.
Here is what I tried:
test.js:
WshShell = WScript.CreateObject("WScript.Shell");
var result = WshShell.Run("test.vbs", 0, true);
WSH.Echo(result);
test.vbs:
WSH.Echo "test.vbs"
WSH.Quit 5

Silverlight 4 MVVM: Call Javascript function from viewmodel

we have developed an Intranet Management Application with Silverlight 4. We have been asked to add the functionality to call a remote desktop tool which is installed on clients using the Intranet SL App. In an earlier version of the tool written in ASP.NET we just added a Javascript function to the aspx page like this:
function RunShellCommand()
{
var launcher = new ActiveXObject("WScript.Shell");
launcher.Run("mstsc.exe");
}
and called it from ASP.NET.
Now it's clear that SL4 is running in a sandbox and that I cant use the AutomationFactory to create a WScript.Shell object (out of browser mode is not an option).
I thought I could circle around the problem by, again, adding the RunShellCommand javascript method in the aspx page where the SL4 control is hosted and call it via
HtmlPage.RegisterScriptableObject("Page", this);
HtmlPage.Window.Invoke("RunShellCommand", "dummydata");
from my ViewModel. When I run the Application the debugger just skips the RegisterScriptableObject method and quits. Nothing happens.
My question is if am doing something wrong or if this just wont work this way.
Is it possible that I cant do a RegisterScriptableObject from a viewmodel?
EDIT: When I explicitly put a try, catch block around the two methods I get an ArgumentException from the first method stating that the current instance has no scriptable members. When I delete the first method and only run the Invoke, I get a browser error stating that the automation server cant create the object. So is there really no way (except OOB mode) to do this?

Yes, the explanation is correct: you should add at least one method with the ScriptableMember attribute in order that you can use the RegisterScriptableObjectmethod. But it is used only for calling C#-methods from JavaScript.
As far as I see, you want to do the opposite: to call JavaScript code from the Silverlight application. Then you need only one line:
HtmlPage.Window.Invoke("RunShellCommand");
The error automation server cant create the object has nothing to do with Silverlight. I'm sure that if you call the JS function directly - the error will remain.
According to the internet, the reason might be not installed Microsoft Windows Script. Or it is because of security restrictions of the browser.