by 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.