Thinking of building a Flash RIA sites

Hello guys,
I've known RIA for years but never had chance to actually
learn FLASH RIA.
Right now I'm building a website, with lots of AJAX and
javascript animation. I find using javascript animation is
extremely inefficient, and I start thinking why not use FLASH RIA.
I know Flash has a really powerful animation and interactive
framework, much better computability, it also has similar
technology like AJAX. If possible, I will replace most of the
Javascript components with Flash components.
I have basic knowledge of flash animation (i've used it
back'in flash mx)
I'm a javascript & c# programmer, therefore Action Script
should be relatively easy for me to learn.
So I want to know if:
0. it works well with ASP.net websites, because I've seen
lots of Flash&php articles, not alot of ASP.net
1. it's possible to pass in parameter from outside flash(such
as Javascript, or ASP.net from server side)
2. is able to modify HTML (through DOM or something like
that)
3. if my page has two flash, is it possible to pass parameter
between eachother
4. is there any good websites for learning RIA?

You can approach a web site design in whatever way best achieves the goals of the site. By name, a Flash web site is pretty much entirely Flash, with one html page to house it all. I don't think you would gain anything by having what could be a unified Flash site divided into different html pages. Dividing it up, you lose some capabilities and features that are definitely more easily accomplished having a Flash file as the main content platform... features that people come here regularly to try to solve because they don't have a Flash site, just Flash headers or other pieces of Flash content.

Similar Messages

Build to Flash - won't support video for menu backgrounds?

I spent hours on a project that includes After Effects motion menu components included as a video background with a loop point. What looks great in preview and on DVD apparently falls a part in Flash. Flash doesn't show the video background in the main menu. Also - it sure would be nice if Encore included a "preload" progress bar for progressive downloads.
Anyone an expert with using Encore to build to Flash? Are there any other do's and don't I should know about?

Thanks for your response...
I can wait. After all, it was by waiting for the release of the 10h version after the 10e version sabotaged my flash installation, that I was eventually able to at least get Firefox up and running flash again...
It's just frustrating to think that the folks at Adobe can't come up with a better product testing cycle so they are unleashing these problems on end users systems...
I recognize that there may be some sort of issue with my particular system registry. If so, I wish I knew what it was...but flash releases are the only installations I ever have any difficulty with...All of the other software I run updates without failing....sad to say...
Perhaps I will try running a home edition version of secedit (See here)http://support.microsoft.com/kb/313222 instead of the clean or repair install...I'll let you know what I decide and how it works out...
Anyway, thanks for the input..

Building complex flash game in Flash Builder 4 - Workflow/Best Practices

I'm investigating switching to Flash Builder 4 for building a complex game that currently lives purely inside Flash CS4. CS4 is a pretty terrible source code editor and debugger. It's also quite unstable. Many crashes caused by bad behavior in the SWF will take out the entire IDE so are almost impossible to debug. And I've heard other horror stories. To be clear, for this project I'm not interested in the Flex API, just the IDE.
Surprisingly, it seems Flash Builder 4 isn't really set up for this type of development. I was hoping for an "Import FLA" option that would import my Document Class, set it as the main entry point, and figure out where other assets live and construct a new project. What is the best workflow for developing a project like this?
What I tried:
-Create a new Actionscript Project in the same directory where my CS4 lives
-Set the primary source file to match the original project's source file and location
-Set my main FLA as "export to SWC", and added "SWC PATH" to my flash builder 4 project.
-Compile and run.. received many errors due to references to stage instance. I changed these to GetChildByName("stagename"). Instead, should I declare them as members of the main class? (this would mimic what flash CS4 does).
-My project already streams in several external SWF's. I set these to "Export SWC" to get compile-time access to classes and varaibles. This works fine in cs4, the loaded SWF's behave as if they were in the native project. Is the same recommended with FB4?
-Should I also be setting the primary FLA as "export to swc"? If not, how do I reference it from flex, and how does flex know which fla it should construct the main stage with?
Problems:
-I'm getting a crash inside a class that is compiled in one of the external SWF's (with SWC). I cannot see source code for the stack inside this class at all. I CAN see member variables of the class, so symbol information exists. And I do see the stack with correct function names. I even see local variables and function parameters in the watch window! But no source. Is this a known bug, or "by design"? Is there a workaround? The class is compiled into the main project, but I still cannot see source. If FLEX doesn't support source level debugging of SWC's, then it's pretty useless to me. The project cannot live as a single SWF. It needs to be streaming and modular for performance and also work flow. I can see source just fine when debugging the exact same SWC/SWF through CS4.
-What is the expected workflow with artists/designers working on the project? Currently they just have access to all the latest source, and to test changes they run right through flash. Will they be required to license Flash Builder as well so they can test changes? Or should I be distributing the main "engine" as a SWF, and having it reference other SWF files that artists can work on? They they compile their SWF in CS4, and to test the game, they can load the SWF I distribute.
A whitepaper on this would be awesome, since I think a lot of folks are trying to go this direction. I spent a long time searching the web and there is quite a bit of confusion on this issue, and various hacks/tricks to make things work. Most of the information is stale from old releases (AS2!).
If a clean workflow I would happily adopt Flash Builder 4 as the new development tool for all the programmers. It's a really impressive IDE with solid performance, functional intellisense, a rich and configurable interface, a responsive debugger..I could go on and on. One request is shipping with "visual studio keyboard layout" for us C++ nerds.
Thanks very much for reading this novel!

Flash builder debugging is a go! Boy, I feel a bit stupid, you nailed the problem Jason - I didn't have "Permit Debugging set". I didn't catch it because debugging worked fine in CS4 because, well, CS4 doesn't obey this flag, even for externally loaded SWF files (I think as long as it has direct access to the SWC). Ugh.
I can now run my entire, multi SWF, complex project through FB with minimal changes. One question I do have:
In order to instantiate stage instances and call the constructor of the document class, I currently load the SWF file with LoaderContext. I'm not even exporting an SWC for the main FLA (though I may, to get better intellisense). Is this the correct way of doing it? Or should I be using , or some other method to pull it into flex? They seem to do the same thing.
The one awful part about this workflow is that since almost all of my code is currently tied to symbols, and lives in the SWF, any change i make to code must first be recompiled in CS4, then I have to switch back to FB. I'm going to over time restructure the whole code base to remove the dependency of having library symbols derive from my own custom classes. It's just a terrible work flow for both programmers and artists alike. CS5 will make this better, but still not great. Having a clean code base and abstracted away assets that hold no dependencies on the code seems like the way to go with flash. Realistically, in a complex project, artists/designers don't know how to correctly set up symbols to drive from classes anyway, it must be done by a programmer. This will allow for tighter error checking and less guess work. Any thoughts on this?
Would love to beta test CS5 FYI seeing as it solves some of these issues.
Date: Thu, 21 Jan 2010 15:06:07 -0700
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Subject: Building complex flash game in Flash Builder 4 - Workflow/Best Practices
How are you launching the debug session from Flash Builder? Which SWF are you pointing to?
Here's what I did:
1) I imported your project (File > Import > General > Existing project...)
2) Create a launch configuration (Run > Debug Configuration) as a Web Application pointing to the FlexSwcBug project
3) In the launch config, under "URL or path to launch" I unchecked "use default" and selected the SWF you built (I assume from Flash Pro C:\Users\labuser\Documents\FLAs\FlexSwcBug\FlexSwcBugCopy\src\AdobeBugExample_M ain.swf)
4) Running that SWF, I get a warning "SWF Not Compiled for Debugging"
5) No problem here. I opened Flash Professional to re-publish the SWF with "Permit debugging" on
6) Back In Flash Builder, I re-ran my launch configuration and I hit the breakpoint just fine
It's possible that you launched the wrong SWF here. It looks like you setup DocumentClass as a runnable application. This creates a DocumentClass.swf in the bin-debug folder and by default, that's what Flash Builder will create a run config for. That's not the SWF you want.
In AdobeBugExample_Main.swc, I don't see where classCrashExternal is defined. I see that classCrashMainExample is the class and symbol name for the blue pentagon. Flash Builder reads the SWC fine for me. I'm able to get code hinting for both classes in the SWC.
Jason San Jose
Quality Engineer, Flash Builder
>

Plz help i need to build a flash gallery with thumbs

plz help me i need to build a flash gallery with thumbs plz
give me the code or the fla file ........ !

You don't give a lot of information about your set-up but there are a couple ways to do this.
You can run Open Directory on your OS X Server and bind that to your Active Directory forest. This will allow people to authenticate against your OD using their AD credentials. This will work (it's better/easier in 10.5 than 10.4) but will result in Kerberos ticket which you would need to integrate to your site's permissions. You might be able to use Service ACLs to only allow authenticated users to access a certain site or service and that would take care of the authentication and control for you - but would require a certain amount of server manipulation and ODAD interaction. From the tone of your question I'm guessing this is an answer beyond what you were looking for.
Alternately you should be able to build a website that presents a dialogue and uses LDAP against the AD server. Almost all the examples of this are, of course, using MS specific tools and code like C# and .Net. But even to get this working would certainly programming (using PHP, Java or some other language) to handle the request and answer from the server and this will be beyond anything included in CS4. Depending on your resources maybe you could create the whole website except for the authentication and have someone code that for you. But it would need to be someone not from the MS world because they will probably want to use tools that are Windows specific.
Lastly there is the web specific .htaccess method that you could use without programming, but as you anticipate it will require you to manage the file that has the name/password information in it and will not talk to AD for information. This is the easy and local way to do it because it cuts AD out of the picture, but that puts the burden of maintenance on you.
I guess the answer is yes this is possible, but it is not easy or automatic.
Good luck,
=Tod

I have a creative cloud membership. If I don't want to build a site in Muse, can I build a business Catalyst site and have hosted free with my creative cloud membership?

I have a creative cloud membership. If I don't want to build a site in Muse, can I build a business Catalyst site and have hosted free with my creative cloud membership?

Yes you can! It is a Basic level site but you can build it without Muse. I think you may need to create the site originally with Dreamweaver or Muse (meaning creating the site with Business Catalyst not building the site) but once that is done you can use any software to create the code for the site and upload it via SFTP. Hope that makes sense.

Flex Builder 4 == Flash Builder 4

I've seen a ton of blogs discussing Adobe's decision to rename Flex Builder to "Flash Builder" for version 4.0, and wanted to see what you all think.
Personally I agree with many of the blog comments that it is a bad move.
Flex apps are not Flash apps (thankfully), they just happen to run in the same runtime (Flash Player). AIR apps are not Flash apps as well.
I still think Flex will succeed, but are you all looking forward to working in Flash Builder 4?
I for one hope Flex continues to succeed despite this move.

Just recently re-infuriated by this terrible decision on Adobe's part so I located this thread.
On Adobe labs they use this as the reasoning:
If you are new to the Flash Builder beta, the first thing that you’ve already noticed is that we are renaming Flex Builder to Flash Builder. This name change will create a clear distinction between the free open-source Flex framework and the commercial IDE.
So instead of developers (most of which have already learned the distinction by now after TWO versions) having to know the difference between an SDK and an IDE (what kind of idiot developers can't understand this???), now Flash designers (many more of those) and programmers also need to understand the difference between Flash Builder and Flash Professional. They aren't the same product in the least and are barely related, but Flash "newbies" won't know that from the names. Meanwhile Flex newbies will still be confused by the Flex SDK/Flash Builder mismatch.
You would think that Flex devs (many of which come from the Java world which has exactly the same concept of SDK/IDE) who are familiar with software engineering (unlike your typical Flash developer), would be able to overcome this "confusion" more easily than the much larger number of Flash devs.
So now this change is needed, to add even more confusion for everybody involved:
When Flash Builder 4 is released for purchase, the current plan is to name the full-featured edition Flash Builder 4 Premium edition. This change is being made to reduce any risk of confusion between Adobe Flash Professional and Adobe Flash Builder.
If it's already realized that you're just replacing the confusion of Flex newbies with the confusion of both Flex AND Flash newbies... why do it?
Was this some over-paid executive's knee jerk solution to an almost insignificant problem? Given that it seems almost nobody thinks this change is a good idea, perhaps they should have asked (here or elsewhere) their customers what they thought of such a change before simply announcing it and passing it off as a big marketing improvement?
But more importantly: Is it too late to reconsider this idiocy? (I can't wait till Google searches start mixing up Flash Pro and Flash Builder information making it just that much harder to find relevant links!)
If you really want to eliminate the confusion of "Flex Builder" vs "Flex SDK" for the mentally challenged, why not simply rename Flex Builder to a more creative and unique name similar to what Java has in Eclipse/JDK? Heck even calling it FX Builder would have been better than Flash Builder! The marketing dept here needs a serious wake up call IMO.

Flash Builder or Flash Professional?

Hey,
Just wondering on your opinion of which should is better to use? Flash Builder or Flash Professional?
Personally I want to drop flash profesiional and just keep developing in flash builder but before I do I want to know if I will lose any advantages or gain, and know if this is a good decision?
I can code everything in flash builder good and love to work in the flash builder environment on desktop games AND mobile games sometimes.
So what do you think I should do? Whats your opinion.
Thanks

Thank you... I guess I have a month or a year or so in front of me with what I have now, so I'm not looking to delve at this point if there is no advantage. Thanks for your opinion and time.
I was also looking for a bit on vector graphics to import into flash for masks etc, and found another of your posts somewhwere that gave some insight... Having just installed Fireworks, I then found I can do the same from PaintShop - what I found was I can "break-apart" an image (in Flash) if I need to snip a little or can use png's directly as masks which I didn't realise before.
So thanks again Mr K

How can I build a personal web site using...

Hi,friends on Oracle world.
I am a new starter in oracle forms and AS.Nowdays,I am interested to build a personal web site using forms and other tech. such as flash. Can I do that ?Would you plz give me some suggestions?

All the information about running Forms on the web is at:
http://otn.oracle.com/formsupgrade
I would also suggest that you would look at Oracle9iAS Portal for the design of your website.
look at http://otn.oracle.com/products

How to View Flash Web Sites?

How can I view flash web sites on my iPhone? Do I need to download adobe flash player onto my phone to view these sites?

After all, we're talking about a phone that uses battery draining special effects between every single darned screen, and most user actions (especially scrolling) ...
What makes you think the iPhone's hardware & OS weren't carefully optimized for these UI effects? I don't get it. People still seem to think this is just another Mac-like device running OS X, but smaller. It isn't. Apple certainly has the resources to embed an architecture in the device tailor made for its capabilities. After all, the G4 PPC processor was designed specifically for the Mac OS & that was a lot more costly to do than using an embedded ARM core, which is purpose-designed to make exactly this kind of thing possible.
Besides, Flash is notoriously processor intensive, having grown so much from its origins as a simple vector based animation tool into a virtual Frankenstein since Adobe acquired it.

What frame rate should you build your Flash file at?

Every second of video has 30 frames. But Flash animations can
be done at any frame rate, which raises a couple of important
questions:what frame rate should you work at, and second, if you
choose to work at a rate other than 30 frames per second (fps), how
do you convert to 30 fps? I deal with the question of frame rate
conversion below.
You can create a Flash movie at 30 fps. But if is going to be
played back on a computer, a 30 fps .swf file will generally
produce unacceptably high data rates, unless the image is very
small and simple, or the computer it is playing on is very fast. It
can also create a lot of extra animation work if you want to draw
in-betweens for all 30 frames. Fortunately, there is no need to
build your Flash movie at 30 fps, even if you are planning to
transfer it to video.
I usually build animation that needs to work on the web or
video at 12 fps. This gives us a good balance of lower data rates
and smoother animation. When creating cartoon style animation, it
also keeps our work consistent with the majority of broadcast
animation. While some high end cel animation is done at 24 frames
per second (the rate that film is projected at), much broadcast
animation is created at 12 fps. This is because it is drawn on
"2's." In other words, each image holds for 2 frames. Do the math
and it becomes clear why--half the amount of frames to draw each
second. While Disney and Dreamworks may have virtually unlimited
budgets to create their epic animations, most broadcast (and even
more so, Internet) productions are on very tight budgets. But even
the big studios do a lot of character animation on 2's. It looks
good that way, so why create twice the work?
If we are using flash to build a cartoon solely aimed at
broadcast or film, however, we build it at 24 fps. That way we can
animate on 2's for most of the character animation, but do animate
on 1's for segments or particular motions that require smoother
animation.
If we are using Flash to build graphics for broadcast use
only, and so won't be hand drawing in betweens, we usually build
the file at 30 fps. This will give us the smoothest motion, and
data rate won't be an issue for you. It is also possible to even
build it at 60 fps, and convert this to a 30 fps video with fields
In the end, you can decide to build it at any rate you want.
The lower the rate, the smaller the file size, data rate and number
of frames to animate, but the less smooth the animation.
Conversely, the higher the frame rate, the higher the file size,
data rate and number of frames to animate, but with smoother
animation.
now I use
FLASH VIDEO MX PRO
to covnert Video in multiple formats to FLV or SWF, I set the frame
size just as above, I always get soomth Flash
at the meantime, I have to set video rate when I use
FLV To Video Convert
Pro to play the video in my iPod, if you set the wrong frame
rate, your iPod and other devices may not support the frame rate

Usually video quality has nothing with frame rate, but when
you convert flash to iPhone or other devices, you should think of
which frame rate video can your device play. when I convert .swf to
iPhone with
SWF to Video
Converter, as you know, iPhone can only support frame rate from
2 to 15 or a little more, I always choose 15. In this scare, frame
rate is higher, the quality is better.

I have just started to use Muse for our design agency and learning how to build ourselves a new site, I have manged to create a basic lightbox which contains sliding images, what I need to do now is have a pop up window which goes into detail about the pr

I have just started to use Muse for our design agency and learning how to build ourselves a new site, I have managed to create a basic lightbox which contains sliding images, what I need to do now is have a pop up window which goes into detail about the projects, what I would like is a piece of text or icon that when you roll over it and then click a separate window pops up with additional information in, once finished reading the info you can then click to close the box, any advice on how to do this?

The best way to do what you're asking is with the Composition widget. Start with the Tooltip preset, which, by default shows the info on rollover. You can change the option to show on click, which is what you're after. You can also add the close button or have the info disappear on rollout.
David

Thinking of Building/Buying a PC for Video Editing?

If one is thinking of building, or buying a PC for video editing, Harm Millaard has published an ARTICLE in the Adobe Hardware Forum. He has arranged it such that one can rather pick and choose from three levels of system - beginner, intermediate and full-blown advanced pro-level rig. There have been some advances in hardware, since the article was first published, but with the discussions that follow it, much has been updated.
Harm approaches the computer from the eyes of one using PrPro, but with the exception of the GPU requirements for the Mercury Playback Engine (MPE), PrE will benefit from his suggestions. Be sure to follow all of the links that he offers in that rather longish thread.
Also see his other NLE PC ARTICLE, and his storage requirements ARTICLE.
If one is considering a RAID setup, his RAID ARTICLE will prove very useful.
If one is considering working with external HDD's, then this ARTICLE should be useful.
Hope that this helps people, who are considering a new computer for video editing.
Good luck,
Hunt

Harm Millaard has written an update to his computer ARTICLE, and there is some good discussion in it, as well.
Hope that this helps someone.
Hunt

Workaround for using the latest nightly SDK 4.0 builds with Flash Builder Beta 2

The latest builds of SDK 4.0 have been updated in preparation for including playerglobal.swc for Flash Player 10.1. Flash Builder Beta 2 can not find playerglobal.swc due to the addition of the {targetPlayerMinorVersion} variable found in the flex-config.xml file.
When using recent nightly SDKs with Flash Builder Beta 2, please modify them as follows:
1) Rename the folder <nightly sdk location>/frameworks/libs/player/10.0 to "10"
2) Edit the file <nightly sdk location>/frameworks/flex-config.xml and remove ".{targetPlayerMinorVersion}" and save
When you restart Flash Builder, we will now find a correct location for playerglobal.swc, allowing for code hints and many other features to work properly.
Jason San Jose
Quality Engineer, Flash Builder

Bump.
As people continue to have problems with the nightly SDK 4 builds and Flash Builder Beta 2, please remember to use the workaround described at the top of this thread. Also see http://blogs.adobe.com/jasonsj/2010/02/workaround_for_using_the_latest_nightly_sdk_40_buil ds_with_flash_builder_beta_2.html.
Jason San Jose
Quality Engineer, Flash Builder

[svn:fx-trunk] 10317: In ASDoc comment, change reference of "Flex Builder" to "Flash Builder"

Revision: 10317
Author:   [email protected]
Date:     2009-09-16 12:56:03 -0700 (Wed, 16 Sep 2009)
Log Message:
In ASDoc comment, change reference of "Flex Builder" to "Flash Builder"
QE notes: -
Doc notes: -
Bugs: -
Reviewer: -
Tests run: - checkintests
Is noteworthy for integration: No
Modified Paths:
    flex/sdk/trunk/frameworks/projects/rpc/src/mx/netmon/NetworkMonitor.as

Encore CS3 crashes when building to Flash (Windows)

I've built a project that has no problem burning a DVD or rendering an ISO image. However, when I try to author a Flash version of the project, it spends hours transcoding, then Encore CS3 crashes. (Generic Windows "Encore CS3 has encountered a problem and needs to close" error.) The only issue that shows up when checking the project is an orphan timeline, but it is linked into the project through playlists.
Any suggestions on how to create a flash version successfully?
Specs:
AMD Dual Core 4800+ (2.51Ghz)
2 Gigs memory
Windows XP SP3

I'm also having issues with Encore crashing all of the time. Whenever I try to build a flash file it crashes near the end. I have a few large videos in there and can build a flash file without the videos in, but why does it keep crashing when the videos are in.... I thought this is what this software is designed for!
Has anyone had any luck getting around their crashes?
To reduce the size of the videos what setting do you suggest changing?
Thanks and good luck to everyone else using Encore!
Matt.

Thinking of building a Flash RIA sites

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