The simple answer is yes, but how. Two sites released their versions of file upload via Flash 8 yesterday and after browsing their wonderful code to see how its done I had a brainstorm. It is possible to use this code to create an image file from scratch? Using the new Bitmapping tools in Flash 8 you should be able to capture and image from a user's webcam and cache the image data. Then export the data to a new file using a mix of the file upload PHP and a dynamic PHP image creation page. Now we have a fresh file on the webserver that contains our newly captured image. You don't want to keep the file on the server? Well one of the file upload samples includes an uploaded files in directory limit. Your application can save the file and email it to the user (again via PHP or even via ASP or JSP if you want) then delete the image from the directory. All this could be created using this pre-existing code. Of course if you don't want to start from scratch yourself, you can take a look at Sephiroth.it's sample: Export JPEG with Flash/PHP. If a developer were to use the export code to create an image from a camera feed and then use the file upload example they would have a quick and dirty photograph saved to the server!
Latest Katrina update: why have I been posting these blurbs at the end of my posts?
1. I hope flash player 8.5 will have the ability to import files from the users hard drive without uploading them. That way it would be possible to for example import an image & manipulate or compress it before upload.
Posted at 11:21AM on Oct 29th 2005 by Peter