This works well except for when I'm making rapid changes to the swf. Each time I make a change, the swf needs to get copied to all of the servers in the network. Until that happens, I can't be sure that everyone is seeing the must current version. Worse, I can't be sure that I'm seeing the most current version. Is my bug fix not working because there's something wrong with it? Or am I seeing the version before the fix.
The best way to deal with this is not to post constant fixes to the CDN. Test on a single-server site and then upload to the CDN when the app is ready to go live. In theory that works -- and in reality it works for most of the dev cycle -- but in this world of "always in beta," there's now less of distinction between the testing phase and the live phase. (Which sucks and is wrong, wrong, wrong, but I don't run the world.)
So inevitably I wind up tweaking the swf after it's gone live and is hosted on the CDN. If I find that a change has not propagated to all of the machines on the network, I have to run through a somewhat lengthy set of steps in a web control panel, to make sure that everyone is getting the latest copy. I only want to do this if necessary. Sometimes all the machines get updated as soon as I upload my changes. How can I tell?
Here's my simple solution:
import flash.ui.ContextMenu;
import flash.ui.ContextMenuItem;
const APP_VERSION : String = "1.0";
var menu: ContextMenu = new ContextMenu();
var contextMenuItem : ContextMenuItem = new ContextMenuItem( "app version: " + APP_VERSION );
menu.customItems.push( contextMenuItem );
this.contextMenu = menu;
I put this in my Document class and change the APP_VERSION every time I upload. Then, when I'm looking at it in the browser, I just need to right click on it to see if I'm looking at the most current version.
