Flash MX Application & Interface Design: Data delivery, navigation, and fun in Flash MX, XML, and PHP

✍ Scribed by Pete Aylward, Ken Jokol, Jamie Macdonald, Paul Prudence, Glen Rhodes, Robbie Shepherd, Todd Yard (auth.)

• Publisher: Apress
• Year: 2002
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 256
• Edition: 1
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

The days of Flash as a creative luxury are long gone. After months of downsizing, Flash creativity has been on a huge rationalization program. It is no longer enough to present animation in millions of colors and a hundred transparencies. It is no longer sufficient to provide interactivity and dynamism for their own sake.

The purpose of this collection is to show how designers have taken Flash and made it work for its supper. What we discover is a series of creations that place Flash at the hub of cutting edge web content.

The end result is a snapshot of Flash as the ideal medium.

In these amazing examples, we see the software pushed to its limits to create unbeatable applications—a collapsible family tree, an interactive video learning system, and a drawing tool, capable of running online!

Beyond this, we dip into the back-end capabilities to look at how to improve Flash still further. Some staple XML and PHP routines are brought in to add a bit of spice, while Flash's mysterious sharedObject command is hunted down and tamed to create a hybrid Tamagotchi houseplant—perfectly suited to lure surfers back to your website!

✦ Table of Contents

Front Matter....Pages i-vii
Designing Preloaders....Pages 1-24
Creating Interfaces with the Drawing API....Pages 25-44
Real Feel Interfaces....Pages 45-72
A Flash Family Tree....Pages 73-102
Making XML Work for Your Interface....Pages 103-134
A PHP Powered Site....Pages 135-152
Planning Site Stickiness....Pages 153-174
A T-Shirt Designer....Pages 175-210
Interactive Video: Karate!....Pages 211-238
Back Matter....Pages 239-248

✦ Subjects

Software Engineering/Programming and Operating Systems