I use Flex 3 in the user interface of a Windows application (Flash Player as a built-in ActiveX control) and transferring data between them using ExternalInterface (primarily to the Flex application, as opposed to out). However, I find that the performance is pretty terrible, especially with larger (i.e. regular) objects; the more EI calls we make, and the more custom objects go through, the more difficult the performance seems to decrease.
I suppose there is a lot of overhead when serializing these objects, so I wonder if there are any better methods for using ExternalInterface in this way? There seems to be not much in terms of documentation on this subject.
Is it better to, say, pass a large XML block to a player control as a string and parse it with Flex, usually pass it as a user object? How do Flex applications that require relatively tight integration with their host applications best use ExternalInterface without sacrificing performance? Is there an EI issue with an Adobe issue? Any differences in implementation between players 9 and 10? What things should we avoid in order to make the most of this feature?
Thanks in advance!
Chris
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