AIR app communnicating with External App

Question

I would like to make my AIR app communicate with another
application that's running on the desktop. What are the best ways
to do this?
Ideally I'm looking to call functions inside the AIR app from
a separate program, and vice versa. This is in fact possible using
the ExternalInterface capability, however, this is only available
when the separate application is an ActiveX container (such as the
browser), and thus contains the FlashPlayer ActiveX control within
it. But what if your AS3 application doesn't just run inside the
FlashPlayer but requires the AIR runtime instead? There doesn't
seem to be any way that an external app. can talk to an AIR app the
way it can call functions on the FlashPlayer.
My reasons for needing this are that while AS3 is great,
especially for creating an interactive interface, there are still
some low-level things which must be coded in another language.
Any thoughts that anyone has on this topic would be greatly
appreciated.

Answer 1

Hi Bruce,
In theory, you can do what you want, but it is an indirect
way of achieving it, and there are some performance/functional
issues.
You can make a windows application that is an ActiveX control
container, and put the FlashPlayer control inside it. Handle the
"FlashCall" event in your windows program (this is fired when your
swf calls a custom external function), and then you can use it to
load and call whatever .dll function you want.
In practice, from what I've observed, there are some
limitations. The graphics performance of the FlashPlayer suffers
when embedded this way in a Windows app. Also, if you want to call
into the flashplayer sometimes the function calls fail. Having said
this, my experience is limited to AS2 implementations; maybe things
have improved with AS3.
Anyway, hope this helps. Would be interested to hear your
observations if you should try this route.
Ed