Adobe FlashIslands: Datacommunication and performance

[Former Member]

Hello everybody,

We're building a complete frontend in Flash Islands, and at the moment we're working with just data binding.

What I know at the moment:

- fireEvent to SAP backend and pass along parameter(s)

- [Bindable] vars in frontend, and binding them with context nodes in backend.

Now I'm wondering if there's a possibility to sent some sort of event with parameters from the backend to the Flex frontend?

And does anybody advice using binding when dealing with large amounts of data such as binding a large internal table? Or are BSP's and webservices (xml) more advised, or other options? (are there already any performance tests done perhaps?)

Kind regards,

Kim Schoukens

[ChrisPaine · Accepted solution]

Hi Kim,

wouldn't it be lovely to have the ability to event to an island - unfortunately not at the moment - best you can do is set up a certain variable to change and use this to flag that an event has occurred.

As for the data transfer - I have set up processes so that once data has been transferred, the island sends back an event - I catch that event and clear down the context. Otherwise the entire context is resent on every update of the screen - which can mean LOTS of data being resent. I handle sending deltas only within my island component - so only updates are sent - and the island is written to understand and cope with deltas.

If you follow this approach then the islands can provide good performance - I pass org chart data of 1000's of records and the speed is quite quick - even when using poor networks. Indeed the ability to render client side using the island means that it is generally well received compared to conventional WDA where the network connection is poor.

Thomas a while back talked about some better delta handling coming in 7.02 but I think that wasn't for data... but I may have been confused. (I often am). Have a search of the forums for the thread - search on delta and island...

Hope this helps you,

Cheers,

Chris

[wouter_peeters · Accepted solution]

I understand the concept of delta binding now, according to a post of Thomas Jung we'd have to wait until Netweaver 7.03 to see this being used with Flash Islands. But how do you work around the current way? Add an EventListener till you receive END_UPDATE of the island so all data is loaded in Flex side, and then fireEvent to SAP and clear context in SAP Backend?

So in this way there won't be any data communication for that binding untill you fill it back up in Flex side or fireEvent that fills it in the backend again?

I also have to pass on a bunch of data.. but the thing is the server is located in the US and we're in Belgium. The application load takes around 1min (then app is visible) and then another 15 seconds untill all the data bindings are passed through and shown and fluent interaction with backend is possible.