Introduction to Adobe Connect Web Services

Adobe Connect exposes web services that clients can call to exchange data with Adobe Connect accounts. You can use web services with Adobe Connect hosted accounts and with accounts on Adobe Connect licensed servers.

This guide explains how an application calls Adobe Connect web services and interprets the XML response. It is intended for developers who want to build custom applications for Adobe Connect or integrate it with another system such as a learning management system or LDAP directory service.

Before you use this guide, you should understand the basics of XML and of using HTTP to communicate with a server from a client application. This guide includes some Java code samples, but it does not presume that you are using one specific language or environment.

Adobe Connect Web Services allows you to use any language or platform that can send and receive XML over HTTP to develop custom applications. For example, you can use Java and the J2EE platform, C#.NET, PHP, a portal server, or any web development platform. Most custom applications are web applications or portals.

In general, you may find these types of tools useful:

• An XML parser code library, if your programming language supports XML parsing.

• A cookie management code library, to help you manage the session cookies Adobe Connect returns.

• A tool for viewing HTTP request and response headers in a browser. Many such tools are available on the Internet.

Additional resources

You can find many useful resources on the Internet that provide information about Adobe Connect, web services and XML, and other technologies that Adobe Connect uses.

Adobe Connect

The Adobe Connect User Community at connectusers.com is the hub of the Adobe Connect community. This site has forums, tutorials, events, announcements, a partner showcase and much more.

 The Adobe Connect Help and Support Center contains the Adobe Connect documentation and Support contact information.

XML and web services

at the Xml.com website (xml.com) is a good introduction to web services.

at the W3Schools website (w3schools.com) can help you get started with XML.

also at the W3Schools website (w3schools.com), describes XPath, which parses an XML document so that you can use it in an application.

a third tutorial at the W3Schools website (w3schools.com), teaches you XSL Transformations, which you use to convert XML data to other formats.

at the W3C website (w3.org) is the official definition of XSLT, from the standards committee who created it.

at the International Organization for Standardization website (iso.org), provides information about how to use the ISO 8601 standard date and time format.

at the W3C website (w3.org) is the official definition of the ISO 8601 date and time format.

for information on reserved characters and percent encoding is available in RFC3986. URLs must be properly encoded, using percent encoding for reserved characters.

Other technologies

at the Eduworks Corporation website (eduworks.com), is a tutorial about the Shareable Content Object Reference Model and describes Shareable Content Objects (SCOs) and Learning Management Systems (LMSs).

at the Kings Mountain Systems website (www.kingsmountain.com), provides a useful overview of the Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP). This site might provide good background material or links for developers integrating an LDAP directory with Adobe Connect.

 Adobe Connect uses a Microsoft SQL Server database, which your custom applications retrieve data from and write data to. You may find useful resources at the Microsoft SQL Server Developer Center (msdn.microsoft.com) including references, community, support, and other information.

Conventions used in the Web Services guide

This guide uses industry standard conventions for displaying code that you are already familiar with.

However, API reference is a formal definition of the API contract between a calling application and the server. As such, the syntax definitions of request URLs should be described.

We have placed distinct sections of a request URL on separate lines for readability, like this:

When you enter a request URL in the address bar of a browser or construct it in an application, enter it or construct it as a single line:

Syntax elements in blue code font represent definitions that you construct, with a hyperlink to the syntax of the definition.