Seeking advice for timer design

Question

Hi,
I am designing a timer application with Flex Builder 3 which
is basically a stop watch that will remember when it was started if
the page is reloaded (on a different computer, for instance). My
original plan was to use JavaScript and mySQL but I'd like to give
it a try with Flex first.
Since Flex doesn't interact directly with databases I'm
wondering if using mySQL to store the timer settings is the best
idea? I think I could manage interfacing it with PHP but I'm not
sure how much trouble this is going to be since I'm a new Flex
user.
How would you approach the project?
Thanks,
tekfetish

Answer 1

Interfacing with a server part is very simple using Flex, PHP
would be just fine - as well as any other server side
language/system.
Here is an Actionscript idea:
You just create a HTTPService variable
quote:
* gateway : this is the communication layer with the server
side php code
private var gateway:HTTPService = new HTTPService();
Then set properties of this service
quote:
gateway.url = '
http://www.myServer.com/myScript.php';
gateway.method = "POST";
gateway.useProxy = false;
If you'd like to pass parameters, use something like this:
quote:
parameters['someNameHere'] ='John Doe';
parameters['whichTimer'] = 'timer 1';
gateway.request = parameters;
Then, define which functions should be called once the
HTTPService returns [resultHandler on success and faultHandler on
error:
quote:
gateway.addEventListener(ResultEvent.RESULT, resultHandler);
gateway.addEventListener(FaultEvent.FAULT, faultHandler);
Then do something in these functions:
quote:
public function resultHandler(e:ResultEvent):void
// your code here...
public function faultHandler(e:FaultEvent):void
var errorMessage:String = "Connection error: " +
e.fault.faultString;
if (e.fault.faultDetail)
errorMessage += "\n\nAdditional detail: " +
e.fault.faultDetail;
Alert.show(errorMessage);
Finally, perform your request:
quote:
gateway.send();