SwfStore

SwfStore is a JavaScript library for cross-domain flash cookies. It includes a .swf file that handles the storage and a JavaScript interface for loading and communicating with the flash file.

Working example: https://nfriedly.github.io/Javascript-Flash-Cookies/ and http://nfriedly.com/stuff/swfstore-example/

Security Warning

The default storage.swf allows any website to read the data in your flash file. You should avoid storing private information in it. It would be wise to edit and recompile the flash file to limit itself to your domain and http/https settings. (See src/Storage.as around line 93.) You can do this yourself with Adobe Flash or the Apache Flex SDK (free) or I can do it for you for $5 - email me for details.

Also, versions older than 1.9.1 are vulnerable to a XSS attack and should not be used.

Compatibility

Requires Flash Player 9.0.31.0 or newer. Should be compatable with nearly all desktop browsers, assuming the user has Adobe Flash installed (or it's Google Chrome, which has flash player built in). Very few mobile browsers/devices support flash.

Installation

Via Bower:

bower install --save flash-cookies

Or install via npm (for use with browserify:

npm install --save flash-cookies

Usage Notes

Ensure that the storage.swf file is available, Browserify won't make it public by default.

Certain built-in keys such as hasOwnProperty cannot be overwritten in actionscript. A future version may detect this and throw an error.

Most mobile devices will not work due to lack of flash support.

Basic Usage

// this should run on DOMReady, or at least after the opening <body> tag has been parsed.
var mySwfStore = new SwfStore({
  namespace: "my_cool_app",
  swf_url: "//example.com/path/to/storage.swf",
  onready: function() {
    mySwfStore.set('key', 'value');
    console.log('key is now set to ' + mySwfStore.get('key'));
  },
  onerror: function(err) {
    console.error(err.message);
  }
});

A more thorough example is also available at http://nfriedly.com/techblog/2010/07/swf-for-javascript-cross-domain-flash-cookies/

Configuration options

swf_url: URL to included storage.swf file. All sites/pages using SwfStore should have the exact same url here for cross-domain usage, and it should be a protocol-relative url (just // instead of http:// or https://) for cross-protocol usage.
namespace: Namespace used both internally for the JS object and for the LocalStorage Object (cookie). May contain forward slash (/) but all other special characters will be replaced with _
debug: Set to true to log debug information to the browser console (Automatically creates a logging <div> on the page if no console is available.)
timeout: Number of seconds to wait before concluding there was an error. Defaults to 10.
onready: Callback function to fire once SwfStore is loaded and ready. No arguments.
onerror: Callback function to fire in the event of an error. Passes an Error object as the first argument.

API

Instance methods:

get(key): Returns the value for key as a String or null if the key is not set.
set(key, value): Sets key to value.
- Note: setting a key to null or undefined is equivalent to clear()ing it.
clear(key): Deletes the value for key if it exists.
getAll(): Returns a Object in the form of {key: value} with all data stored in the .swf.
clearAll(): Clears all data from the .swf.
ready: Boolean to indicate whether or not the .swf has loaded and is ready for access.
- Note: providing an onready callback to the config is recommended over checking the .ready property.

Troubleshooting

Be sure the urls to the .swf file and .js file are both correct.
If the .swf file is unable to communicate with the JavaScript, it will display log messages on the flash object. If debug is enabled, this should be visible on the page.
To hide the flash object and disable the log messages appending to the bottom of the page, set debug: false in the configuration options. (Log messages are added to a <div> if no browser console is available).
If the user does not have flash installed, the onerror function will be called after a (configurable) 10 second timeout. You may want to use a library such as Flash Detect to check for this more quickly. Flash Player 9.0.31.0 or newer is required.
If you pass a non-string data as the key or value, things may break. Your best bet is to use strings and/or use JSON to encode objects as strings.
If you see the error `uncaught exception: Error in Actionscript. Use a try/catch block to find error., try using // in the .swf URL rather than https://. See #14 for more information.
Do not set display:none on the swf or any of its parent elements, this will cause the file to not render and the timeout will be fired. Disable debug and it will be rendered off screen.
The error this.swf.set is not a function has been known to occur when the FlashFirebug plugin is enabled in Firefox / Firebug.
This library is not sutable for storing large amounts of data because the .swf is normally rendered off screen and thus there is no way for the user to respond to Flash's prompt to increase the storage limit.

File Details

storage.swf is the compiled flash file ready to be embedded in your website. Note the security warning above.

swfstore.min.js - a copy of swfstore.js, minified for your convenience. This and a copy of storage.swf should be all you need to use this on a production website.

swfstore.js handles the interaction between javascrpt and flash, it also handles embedding and some basic error checking.

Storage.as is where all the magic happens. It maps an External Interface to a Local Storage Object. I'm no expert when it comes to Flash / ActionScript, but it should be reasonably well documented and fairly safe.

The storage.fla is essentially just an empty shell file that points to Storage.as as it's main class.

See example/index.html for a working example that you can put on your site.

Compiling

.js

This project uses UglifyJS2 via the Grunt plugin. Setup:

Install Node.js
Install Grunt globally: npm install -g grunt
cd into the project directory and install the dependencies: npm install
Run grunt uglify to "compile" (minify) the JavaScript.

.swf

This .swf can be compiled using Adobe Flash (paid) or the Apache Flex SDK (free).

With Adobe Flash, open src/storage.fla and export it to dist/storage.swf

Grunt is set up to use Apache Flex via the grunt-swf plugin. The plugin is installed via the standard npm install but the SDK must be installed separately.

See flex-sdk/instructions.md or https://github.com/nfriedly/grunt-swf#installing-the-apache-flex-sdk for more details on installing the Flex SDK.

Then run grunt swf to compile the .swf.

Tip: grunt build will compile both the .js and the .swf.

(Note: on Windows, Git Bash may give better results than the windows command prompt.)

Contributors

Nathan Friedly - http://nfriedly.com
Alexandre Mercier - https://twitter.com/alemercier
Andy Garbutt - https://twitter.com/techsplicer

Release process

Update the the changelog in the readme
Compile anything that's changed (see the Compiling section above)
Commit everything
Run npm version [major | minor | patch ] with the appropriate flag (Ssee http://semver.org/ for details)
Push to Github - Travis CI will automatically run tests and publish when appropriate

To Do

Figure out how to run automated cross-domain & cross-protocol tests
update demo
Make automated tests less flakey
Look into http://karma-runner.github.io/ or http://theintern.io/ or similar to automate local testing.
Sourcemap

Changelog

See history.md

MIT License

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.

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