Posted on January 9, 2013 by Nicholas

Posted on January 9, 2013 by Nicholas | Posted in Adobe Air, AS3, Flash, General Information, Helpfulness | Tagged Adobe Air, Air, as3, Chat, cirrus, Flash, LAN, Local Area Network, minimap comps, Network communication, p2p, peer to peer, RTMFP, ServerSocket, stratus, TCP, UDP

15 Responses to AS3 P2P Chat Client

1. 

   Steven says:

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   Hi Nicholas,
   I am currently doing a p2p multiplayer game project, facing the problem which your example chat room had the answer…so i would like to ask is your project develop by using fully flash and actionscript 3? and how you manage the username key in by different player to display it on the list?

   Thanks in advance, hope to get your reply soon.

   January 15, 2013 at 1:51 AM

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     Nicholas says:

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     Hey Steven.

     The project is AS3/AIR. That’s it. I code in FlashDevelop and import asset libraries using Flash.
     The usernames are stored locally on each client when they connect. They send their username to all users connected, and when that is received, each user sends their username back, thus creating a user list containing every user on every chat client.
     So if you store the username locally when the user connects, you then have access to it and can always attach it to objects being sent over the network.
     Hope this helps. Let me know if you need anymore help on the matter.

     Cheers.

     January 15, 2013 at 2:46 PM

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       Steven says:

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       Hi Nicholas,

       Thanks for quick reply. I’m now going to create a “mastermind board game” in flash. There is a multiplayer mode. Now my problem is, when player join the multiplayer mode, their name suppose display on the “ROOM” ‘s name list, but then, now i only manage to display my own name and their peerID . which mean, only “PLAYER A” manage to see “PLAYER A” in name list. At “PLAYER B” side, they only can see “PLAYER A”‘s peerID .

       Thanks alot. Have a nice day =D

       January 15, 2013 at 9:41 PM

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         Nicholas says:

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         Hey Steven.
         I didn’t get a chance to reply last night and right now I’m away from my computer. But as soon as I get back to it, I’ll provide a better explanation with code. But for now:

         On your “connect” event notification, you need to broadcast your username (which would have been saved when they entered it to connect I assume) to all the neighbors in the group.
         On receipt of that message, they need to send their name back to that user.

         Hope that makes sense. I’m on my phone, so typing is a little annoying. As I said, I’ll explain better when I get back to my machine.

         Good luck.

         January 16, 2013 at 1:26 PM

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           Steven says:

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           Hi Nicholas,

           Million thanks, i will try to do it while waiting u back to your machine. Have a safe journey.

           January 16, 2013 at 8:33 PM

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           Nicholas says:

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           Hey Steven. Hope I’m not too late. Only just got time to get back to you.

           Here is a breakdown of my NetStatus event handler. Hope it helps.

           private function SetupConnection() : void { //setup connection object netConn = new NetConnection(); //listen for result of setup netConn.addEventListener(NetStatusEvent.NET_STATUS, NetHandler, false, 0, true); //connect to LAN netConn.connect("rtmfp:"); }   private function NetHandler(e:NetStatusEvent):void { switch(e.info.code){ case "NetConnection.Connect.Success": SetupGroup(); break; case "NetGroup.Connect.Success": // clientObject is a local variable Object. It stores the user's information clientObject.label = username; clientObject.timeTag = new Date().time; clientObject.peerID = netConn.nearID;   peers.push(clientObject); // peers is an array of objects that store the users connected newUserSignal.dispatch(clientObject); // this is a "sort of" event dispatch, that sends out the local client object. This is so that the peers array, and user list will also contain this user's info. break; case "NetGroup.Posting.Notify": ReceiveMessage(e.info.message, e.info.fromLocal); // This just accepts the message sent, and I am using that object to print the message. break; case "NetGroup.Neighbor.Connect": //get group address of peer var destination:String = group.convertPeerIDToGroupAddress(String(e.info.peerID)); var obj:Object = new Object(); obj.username = username; obj.peerID = clientObject.peerID; // Put the LOCAL id into the object, cause this object is being sent to OTHER clients. obj.timeTag = new Date().time; //save to message object obj.destination = destination; // The destination is the destination of the client that just connected. This is used to ensure that the local client's info is sent to the new user(destination). //send message group.sendToNearest(obj, destination); // Sends the object to the nearest neighbor. If the neighbor is not the destination of the object, then that neighbor will send it to it's nearest neighbor. (See case: "NetGroup.SendTo.Notify") break; case "NetGroup.Neighbor.Disconnect": //neighbour disconnected so remove details from list RemoveUser(e.info.peerID.toString()); // This function iterates through the peers array, and finds the object that contains the peerID of the client that just disconnected. break; case "NetGroup.SendTo.Notify": if (e.info.fromLocal){ // If the message came from this client, that means the destination is correct, so take the information from the object sent, and populate the user list. //is destination so display it var peerObject:Object = new Object(); peerObject.peerID = e.info.message.peerID.toString(); peerObject.label = e.info.message.username; peerObject.timeTag = new Date().time;   peers.push(peerObject); newUserSignal.dispatch(peerObject); // Dispatch the new user's info and add it to the peers array and to the username list } else{ //not destination so re-send group.sendToNearest(e.info.message, e.info.message.destination); } break; } }   private function SetupGroup() : void { //create a GroupSpecifier object var groupspec:GroupSpecifier = new GroupSpecifier(localGroupName); //enable posting (to entire group) groupspec.postingEnabled = true; //enable direct routing (to individual peer) groupspec.routingEnabled = true; //allow data to be exchanged on IP multicast sockets groupspec.ipMulticastMemberUpdatesEnabled = true; //set the IP adress and port to use groupspec.addIPMulticastAddress("225.225.0.1:30303"); //create NetGroup with our NetConnection using GroupSpecifier details group = new NetGroup(netConn, groupspec.groupspecWithAuthorizations()); //listen for result of setup group.addEventListener(NetStatusEvent.NET_STATUS, NetHandler, false, 0, true); }

           January 16, 2013 at 11:13 PM

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2. 

   Steven says:

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   Hi Nicholas,

   Thanks you so much !! it Solve my problem!! hahaha… i made mistake at “NetGroup.Neighbor.Connect”… which i put the destination at “NetGroup.SendTo.Notify”… milion thanks Buddy! This problem been cracking my head for last 2 day… it solved now… THANKS!!

   January 17, 2013 at 5:09 AM

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     Nicholas says:

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     No problem. Glad you got it worked out!

     Cheers!

     January 17, 2013 at 1:58 PM

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3. 

   Steven says:

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   Hi Nicholas,

   Sorry to bother you again… i got 1 question to ask you.cause i might going to use this again on other project.
   How you actually implement this “newUserSignal.dispatch(clientObject);” ? is the “newUserSignal” consider as “object” too?

   January 19, 2013 at 10:01 PM

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     Nicholas says:

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     Hey Steven.

     That variable is an instance of a Signal, which is an event library that you could find out more about at – http://www.peterelst.com/blog/2010/01/22/as3-signals-the-best-thing-since-sliced-bread/

     I highly recommend it, it’s a very neat alternative to the built in events in AS3, much more versatile.

     So basically, in pure vanilla AS3 terms, that line in my code would be something like –

     dispatch(new Event(“USER_HAS_CONNECTED));

     And then I would send the clientObject out as well somehow. But using signals, I can dispatch an “event” and also pass out arguments with the event. So the class that is listening for the signal, receives the signal, and the variable being passed by the signal as well.

     Hope that makes sense.

     Cheers.

     January 20, 2013 at 2:23 AM

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       Steven says:

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       Hey Nicholas,

       Thanks for replying me. Guess I have so much more to learn.

       Have a nice day. =D

       January 20, 2013 at 3:06 AM

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4. 

   Nicholas says:

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   No problem.

   Do you understand what I was saying about signals though? And how I’m passing the clientObject out to other clients?

   January 20, 2013 at 12:40 PM

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     Steven says:

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     erm, i understand how u passing the clientObject out to other clients, but then a little bit confuse about the signal writing thingy.

     January 20, 2013 at 10:18 PM

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5. 

   Nicholas says:

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   This is pseudo code for dispatching the signal. This would be done somewhere in the class that is managing the NetStatus event.

   class Connection { public var clientObjectSignal:Signal = new Signal();   // Whenever a user connects to the group, this function should send out the user's info to the userlist in the UserList class private function UserHasConnected() : void { var peerObject:Object = new Object(); peerObject.peerID = e.info.message.peerID.toString(); peerObject.label = e.info.message.username; peerObject.timeTag = new Date().time; clientObjectSignal.dispatch(peerObject); } }

   Then in the UserList that contains the user list, you would listen for the signal like this:

   class UserList { var connection:Connection;   connection = new Connection(); connection.clientObjectSignal.add(ClientConnectHandler);   private function ClientConnectHandler(peerObj:Object) : void { // Add user to userlist using the properties of the object passed in. } }

   I hope this helps and makes some sense. This is all pseudo code, so you have to implement it into your code in a way that works.

   Let me know if you need any more help.

   January 21, 2013 at 12:33 AM

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6. 

   Steven says:

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   Hey Nicholas,

   Much more understand now… thanks for the explanation.. haha… you r a great teacher. Have a nice day buddy.

   January 21, 2013 at 9:07 AM

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