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Remote scripting is a Microsoft technology that allows you to establish a kind-of client-server connection through an ASP page with a Java Applet.
This allows you to make calls to the server without changing the state of your HTML page (re-writing it). It makes for nicer looking web pages and also allows asyncronous calls of functions. So it's a very handy way to run long scripts without making the client wait for the page to load.
See Microsoft's scripting site at the MSDN for more information:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/scripting
The following was submitted by Rick Kelsall
ASP code can be called without the need for refreshing the page by using a transparent shockwave movie to act as a live updating link between the client & server.
This is an alternative to Remote Scripting using shockwave as the client/server go-between instead of Java.
Variables are passed in and out of a swf file embedded in the HTML of your page using the setVariable and getVariable methods of the swf object.
In the swf file you have a simple loop that waits for a flash variable (Lookup) to become set. When the Lookup variable becomes set the movie file jumps to a frame where it performs a lookup with a named ASP. This is done using the Load Variables command in Flash.
When the ASP returns it's results to the flash movie - these results can then be read the client-side javascript.
The following example takes some text from an HTML form and passes it to a server-side ASP script via en embedded SWF file. The values returned by the ASP are then read from the SWF movie with client-side javascript and used to immediately update text fields in an HTML form.
function BeginASP() {
// send the value we want to look up to our flash transparent flash movie
// 'moviename' should be the ID of your embedded SWF file (shown in the object tag of the HTML)
document.moviename.setVariable("Lookup",document.form1.textfield.value);
// start waiting for the reply
window.setTimeout("WaitASP();",1500);
}
function WaitASP() {
if(document.movie.getVariable("ReturnValue")!="") {
// the flash movie has set ReturnValue to something - so the ASP has returned our results
document.moviename.setVariable("ReturnValue","");
// read the two variables Town & County returned by the ASP
document.form1.Town.value=document.moviename.getVariable("Town");
document.form1.County.value=document.moviename.getVariable("County");
} else {
// nothing has come back yet, keep waiting...
window.setTimeout("WaitASP();",1500);
}
}