Newbie questions and praise for SFS

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DaveyJJ
Posts: 6
Joined: 13 Dec 2007, 18:11

Newbie questions and praise for SFS

Postby DaveyJJ » 13 Dec 2007, 19:24

Hi all,

I have a couple of quick newbie questions to run through. We are considering a Pro license and the developers/programmers here are very impressed with the robustness, features, scalability etc of SFS. I myself am simply the Creative Director and understand Flash back-end stuff only enough to get myself through meetings intelligently and into trouble later.

Our needs are currently basic but will scale quickly. Out goal is to use SFS as the MP server to do a simple chat lobby and a handful of turn-based MP games in Flash. Our end user is technically savvy, and we have a lot of them now and growing rapidly.

Here are a few basic questions (excuse the extreme newbie-ness of some) that we'd like addressed if someone has the time ...

1. How does SFS compare to competitive products, if any?
2. Can we develop using Action Script 3 in Flash CS3 with a Pro license? -- NEver mind, found this ... viewtopic.php?t=1424
3. We assume that since this is a socket-based solution instead of a standard push-pull model that performance is superb?
4. You log into our website and are an authenticated user. When you go the games page (that has a basic chat lobby) we want the user already logged in instead of having to enter his user name again and a login button. This is possible, correct?
5. Can we make calls outside of AS through a php wrapper or something (may not have that question phrased right)?
6. Our site has a buddy list maintained in a MySQL database ... friends of yourself as a user. We'd want to call that list into the main chat UI ... easy or not?

BTW, I must say that the community here seems exceptional. I am on a few other brilliant forums where user input, help, feedback and commentary are second to none (the Unity3D forums being one of them) and it appears that same camaraderie exists here ... is that accurate would you say?

Thanks for being patient and the developers here want to thank you guys for having such a superb sets of docs and APIs.

DaveyJJ
DaveyJJ
Posts: 6
Joined: 13 Dec 2007, 18:11

Postby DaveyJJ » 13 Dec 2007, 21:50

We also changed the IP address in the config file in the demo version of Pro via the Admin module to test something from 127.0.0.1 to 192.168.1.133 and restarted now can't connect. Quitting the Java process in OSX and trying to restart the server now gives us this error even though we went back into the config file manually and changed it back to 127.0.0.1 ...

Code: Select all

Closing tag does not match opening tag: `ServerSetup' != `ServerIP', SystemID='file:.', Line=137
   at net.n3.nanoxml.XMLUtil.errorWrongClosingTag(XMLUtil.java:538)
   at net.n3.nanoxml.StdXMLParser.processElement(StdXMLParser.java:606)
   at net.n3.nanoxml.StdXMLParser.scanSomeTag(StdXMLParser.java:290)
   at net.n3.nanoxml.StdXMLParser.processElement(StdXMLParser.java:630)
   at net.n3.nanoxml.StdXMLParser.scanSomeTag(StdXMLParser.java:290)
   at net.n3.nanoxml.StdXMLParser.processElement(StdXMLParser.java:630)
   at net.n3.nanoxml.StdXMLParser.scanSomeTag(StdXMLParser.java:290)
   at net.n3.nanoxml.StdXMLParser.scanData(StdXMLParser.java:232)
   at net.n3.nanoxml.StdXMLParser.parse(StdXMLParser.java:203)
   at it.gotoandplay.smartfoxserver.lib.ConfigReader.readCfgFile(ConfigReader.java:231)
   at it.gotoandplay.smartfoxserver.lib.ConfigReader.readServerConfig(ConfigReader.java:239)
   at it.gotoandplay.smartfoxserver.SmartFoxServer.run(SmartFoxServer.java:573)
Problems in config file: Closing tag does not match opening tag: `ServerSetup' != `ServerIP', SystemID='file:.', Line=137
it.gotoandplay.smartfoxserver.exceptions.ConfigurationException: Closing tag does not match opening tag: `ServerSetup' != `ServerIP', SystemID='file:.', Line=137
   at it.gotoandplay.smartfoxserver.lib.ConfigReader.readServerConfig(ConfigReader.java:263)
   at it.gotoandplay.smartfoxserver.SmartFoxServer.run(SmartFoxServer.java:573)

Errors found in configuration files.
Unable to start the server.


Anyone know how to fix this?

EDIT -- FIXED. I killed off a "<" in the code by mistake.
Last edited by DaveyJJ on 14 Dec 2007, 14:32, edited 1 time in total.
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Bax
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Re: Newbie questions and praise for SFS

Postby Bax » 13 Dec 2007, 22:37

Hi DaveyJJ, and welcome!
1. How does SFS compare to competitive products, if any?

Yes, we have one competitor, but we don't like to make direct comparisons, as everybody always claims his product is better. What we can say is that SmartFoxServer comes with a huge amount of documentation (and more is coming with the 1.6 release, next week), which make development very easy also for junior developers; also, as you noticed, this forum is very active and we are always ready to reply in a short amount of time. Not to mention that SmartFoxServer price is very competitive. Finally, some great new features are coming with the release of SFS 1.6, the RedBox and some other goodies we still can't talk about.

2. Can we develop using Action Script 3 in Flash CS3 with a Pro license?

Absolutely yes. And also in Flex, of course.

3. We assume that since this is a socket-based solution instead of a standard push-pull model that performance is superb?

You can judge by yourself checking our benchmark and performance whitepapers.

4. You log into our website and are an authenticated user. When you go the games page (that has a basic chat lobby) we want the user already logged in instead of having to enter his user name again and a login button. This is possible, correct?

It all depends on how you integrate the Flash application which connects to SmartFoxServer with the access system of your website. Maybe this topic should be discussed in a specific post. But definitely it can be done.

5. Can we make calls outside of AS through a php wrapper or something (may not have that question phrased right)?

Sure. Both on the client-side and on the server-side.

6. Our site has a buddy list maintained in a MySQL database ... friends of yourself as a user. We'd want to call that list into the main chat UI ... easy or not?

The new buddy list feature which comes with SFS 1.6 has a totally new persistance system that shoul let you integrate your existing lists. Maybe we can discuss this item once 1.6 is out and you can read the documentation regarding the new buddy list.

Thanks for being patient and the developers here want to thank you guys for having such a superb sets of docs and APIs.

Thank you for your interest in SmartFoxServer! :)
Paolo Bax
The SmartFoxServer Team
DaveyJJ
Posts: 6
Joined: 13 Dec 2007, 18:11

Postby DaveyJJ » 14 Dec 2007, 13:37

Thank you for your reply Paolo. 1.6 sounds exciting.

With regards to those two specific uestions we can review them in detail later. Our system is a secure, but easily adapted php/MySQL sort of model so pulling info from our database (buddies, usernames, points available to a player in our system) shouldn't be hard at all as they are all simply in one of our MySQL databases.

Any thoughts about how to clear up our non-starting server issue? -- Never mind, fixed. I killed off a "<" by mistake.

BTW, where in Italy? My wife's best friend has lived in Italy now for more than 20 years in the beautiful city of Firenze (but aren't all Italian cities beautiful?).

Cheers,

David
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Bax
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Posts: 4610
Joined: 29 Mar 2005, 09:50
Location: Italy
Contact:

Postby Bax » 16 Dec 2007, 10:29

DaveyJJ wrote:BTW, where in Italy? My wife's best friend has lived in Italy now for more than 20 years in the beautiful city of Firenze (but aren't all Italian cities beautiful?).

We are based in a small town in the north west of Italy, not too far from Torino (the olympic host town in 2006).
Paolo Bax
The SmartFoxServer Team

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