Work Flow Help

Question

Hi,
I'm working on a project and need to know what a good
approach is.
I have about 50 videos.
There will be a main main and several sub menus.
The sub menu options will take the users to a page that
displays a video to one side and then text on the other.
The text will change during the video, as there will be too
much to fit it all on screen at one time.
I have someone working with me who will be giving me the text
in a swf file.
What is the best way of making this project?
I was thinking that, since each page will have a video and
text in the same dimensions. I would pass on the name of the video
and swf file from the menu button on to a new movie clip?
Sorry, I don't have that great a grasp of action script. I'm
just looking for a way to do it that doesn't mean making a seperate
movie for each bit of video+text.
Any suggestions will be greatly appreciated. Not looking to
get work done for me, just a point in the right direction.
Cheers

Answer 1

Hi
I am not great with AS either but there are times that we
just have to
dive into that because it is the only way :)
I would create an xml file with all the video data. Something
like:
<data>
<video id=0>
<title> This is my Video 1</title>
<description> This is the text for each
video</description>
</video>
<video id=1>
<title> This is my Video 1</title>
<description> This is the text for each
video</description>
</video>
</data>
Then read about how to load an xml in Flash. This is a very
common task
so there are lots of resources available an a few ways of
doing i. AS3
uses something called E4x which makes "navigating" through
the xml
easier than before.
So just play with trying to trace the information inside the
xml in the
output window .. once you have the hang of that, you can
start to build
your app.
I would convert all the videos to flv using the included
encoder that
comes with flash. Save all of them where your swf will live.
On layer 1, frame 1 you could have your menu bar movie clip
or you can
use the menu bar component to save you time
On layer 2 all you need is an instance of the flv playback
component and
next to it a text field component that can have a scrollbar
to fit all text.
The AS script would "bind' the data "video id" to each of
your menu
options and once that is clicked, call a function that
updates the
components on layer 2 with the new loaded video and text.
There are many ways of doing this but this is how I would do
it :) I
like using components because most of the code is already
available so
you dont need to re write, you just need to know how to
"talk" to them.
Hope it helps