Flash with ASP - A fine blendby Jini M R (Software Programmer, Excellone Technologies)
Macromedia Flash is getting increasingly popular
as a tool for creating interactive multimedia presentations. It
has impressive interface and excellent interactivity. Some users
have complaints about the slow loading time of e flash movies. This
is due to the slow connection or the large size of the flash movie.
The beauty of flash movies and its interactivity with minimal loading
time can be achieved, if used properly and skillfully.
ASP (Active Server Pages) is a server side technology
developed by Microsoft. It can be used to dynamic database driven
HTML web pages and can bind different COM objects to the application.
ASP can be used as an intermediate between the
database and the flash interface. Only few articles and guides are
available about the advantages and power in this development area.
Beginners need to know the basics of either Flash
or ASP. The Flash Action Scripting Books and the ASP books can be
used for experimenting with both the technologies. The programming
aspect of ASP has to be explored by the Flash designer. An ASP programmer
with little knowledge on Flash can explore flash from the inbuilt
tutorials of Flash.
Steps to create a database driven program with Flash with ASP
- Create a Database to use in your form. A database can be created
in Microsoft Access and Microsoft SQL server. Tables can also
be created according to one's needs.
- Create a basic interactive flash interface for the application.
Suppose you want to place 2 controls such as Name and Age in the
form; there are comprehensive inbuilt tutorials on how to use
Open Macromedia Flash. To make a form you will need to know only
a few basics. Open a new file and insert a blank frame. Use the
Text Tool to write any text to be displayed on your interface
e.g. 'Name'. Use the Text Tool's Text Field option to create dynamic
text fields. Right click the text fields to get to their properties
tab. In the Actions property of the frame, give the URL of the
ASP (get URL function) program. Thus the flash movie will get
values from the database.
- Create an ASP file to do the database handling: In the ASP file,
write codes for connecting to the Database, taking data from the
table to variables. Save and publish the movie. If each step is
done well, the movie will displays value from the database. By
mastering Flash with ASP one can develop high-quality web applications.
Flash with ASP is a fine blend of two emerging
technologies. Creating a database with them would prove to be very
profitable indeed.
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