NYCPHP Meetup

[Mark Armendariz]

> The more I think through the functional flow of this project, however, 
> the more silly it seems to be involving Flash at all.
> The only thing stopping me from keeping it purely PHP at this point is 
> how to protect the content at the point it appears in the client 
> browser. Is there any way to do this? Since PHP parses and then 
> returns HTML to the client, I don't see how to make the page content 
> not accessible via View | Source or by saving the resultant page.  
> Ideas? Suggestions?

Well there's nothing wrong with using flash strictly for the text display,
and it might be one of your easier / more reliable options.  Just have the
swf on the page call up the correct text (via xml file, getVariable, etc)
accodding to what question they are on, and use the swf as the 'text reader'
with a scroll bar, etc to allow the user to read all the text.   Make sure
the text is not selectable (just a basic attribute on a flash text box).

This allows you to have easy control of the entire app over nice and
comfortable php, and still protect your text with a usable and protective
text reader. 

The reason I say it may be your best option is that no matter WHAT you do,
the user COULD just take a screen shot of your text and keep the image
files.  And if you're generating images, you're giving them something to
save already.  Flash allows for dynamic text loading without much server
side work and a small clientside footprint.  And since the text will be
dynamic, even if they decompile the swf, the text won't be there.  Just make
sure your backend script only sends data to the swf In the testing browser.

Good luck!

Mark