Foundation Flash MX Applications

598 Pages·2003·99.354 MB·English

by  Scott Mebberson, Steve Webster (auth.)

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Foundation Flash MX
Applications
Scott Mebberson
Steve Webster
0 1: ~ I G Jil l l T 0 Ill t i I G • l 1._
Foundation Flash MX
Applications
© 2003 Apress
Originally published by friends of ED in 2003
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in
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brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.
The authors and publisher have made every effort in the preparation of this book to ensure the accuracy
of the information. However, the information contained in this book is sold without warranty, either express
or implied. Neither the authors, friends of ED nor its dealers or distributors will be held liable for any
damages caused or alleged to be caused either directly or indirectly by this book.
First Printed February 2003
Trademark Acknowledgements
friends of ED has endeavored to provide trademark information about all the
companies and products mentioned in this book by the appropriate use of
capitals. However, friends of ED cannot guarantee the accuracy of this
information.
ISBN 978-1-59059-168-0 ISBN 978-1-4302-5211-5 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-1-4302-5211-5
Foundation Flash MX
Applications
Credits
Authors Editors
Scott Mebberson Phill Jackson
Steve Webster Gavin Wray
Technical Reviewers Author Agent
Aaron Freitas Laura jones
Cath 0 Flynn
jeremy Thomas Project Manager
Sam Riggs Victoria ldiens
Scott Ysebert
Commisioning Editor
Indexers Andy Corsham
Joanne Crichton
Simon Collins Graphic Editor
Avtar Bhogal
Proof Readers
Victoria ldiens Cover Design
Simon Collins Katy Freer
Managing Editor
Sonia Mullineux
Foundation Flash MX Applications
From Adelaide, Australia, Scott Mebberson cottaborates with developers, artists, and
writers aU around the world. His daily life includes writing books on Flash and for
various columns, creating experimental art, and teaching and preaching Flash to the
masses. An active memeber of the Flash community, Scott communicates to the
world via www.pixelogic.org. Scott tries to make a living from freelancing, the world
over. You can reach him almost 24 hours a day at the office,
www.scottmebberson.com, and he's always interested in cottaboration - don't be
shy, make contact! He wants to thank everyone who has helped him, most
importantly, his partner Kate- she kicks arse!
Steve Webster is a Professional Freelance Web Developer and Author who specializes
in advanced dynamic web application development using PHP and MySQL with a
Macromedia Flash front-end. He has studied for an HND in Software Engineering,
during which time he lectured C/C++ programming at one of the largest cotteges in
the UK. When he's not neck-deep in chapter manuscripts he's usuatty working on
client projects or updating his personal site at http://www.codejunkie.co.uk.
Acknowledgements: I have to say a special thank you to my fiancee Nicki for once
again putting up with the relentless hours I spend in front of the computer. Without
your overwhelming support and encouragement I'm not sure that I could have made
it this far, and I only hope that I can repay the favour one day. I can no longer imagine
my world without you in it. I don't know exactly when or how it happened, but I'm
glad it did.
As always, my thanks to the fine people at friends of ED and the rest of the book
development team who have helped to deliver this book -you guys rock!
Table of Contents
Introduction 1
Aims and philosophy ...................................................................................... 1
How to use this book ...................................................................................... 2
Layout conventions used in this book ........................................................ 3
Support we're here for you .......................................................................... 4
Section 1: Framework 6
1 Essential Concepts 7
What is a Flash application? .......................................................................... 8
How does a Flash application work? .................................................... 9
What is a Web application? ........................................................................ 11
Flash applications vs. Web applications .................................................. 11
Client technology ............................................................................................ 12
Flash Player 6: the rich client ................................................................ 12
Communication technology/data transfer .............................................. 14
Introducing XML ...................................................................................... 15
Flash Remoting .......................................................................................... 16
Server technology .......................................................................................... 17
Alternative platforms .................................................................................... 17
The platform matrix ................................................................................ 18
So which platform is for you? .............................................................. 18
Landscape ........................................................................................................ 19
Getting technical ............................................................................................ 20
What is a Flash application used for? ................................................ 20
What is a Flash application capable of? ............................................ 21
Associated technologies .............................................................................. 21
PHP .............................................................................................................. 21
XML .............................................................................................................. 22
MySQL ..........................................................................................................2 3
2 Flash applications: in detail 27
Planning a Flash application ........................................................................ 28
Road map: the workflow of a Flash application .................................... 28
The client-side ................................................................................................ 30
Flash application intent .......................................................................... 31
Target audience ....................................................................................... .31
End-user technology ...................................................................................... 32
The client-side graphic user interface ...................................................... 32
User feedback ............................................................................................ 33
The client-side road map ............................................................................ 34
The server-side ................................................................................................ 35
Data, data, and more data .................................................................... 36
The server-side road map ............................................................................ 37
Platform independence .......................................................................... 39
Foundation Flash MX Applications
Piecing it together .......................................................................................... 39
An entire Flash application road map ............................................... .40
Object-oriented programming .............................................................. 42
Dynamic Flash ..................................................................................................4 4
OOP and GUis .................................................................................................. 44
Why should I use OOP? ......................................................................... .45
OOP glossary ..............................................................................................4 5
Flash application development cycle ........................................................ 46
Concept ......................................................................................................4 6
Planning ...................................................................................................... 46
Workflow/Structure .................................................................................. 46
Prototype .................................................................................................... 46
Concept revision ...................................................................................... 47
Workflow/Structure revision ................................................................ 47
Testing .......................................................................................................... 48
End product ..................................................................................................... .48
Planning: a visual road map ....................................................................... .48
Why is this so important? ..................................................................... .49
How to create a road map .................................................................... 49
FlashBlog ........................................................................................................ ,.50
The FlashBlog front-end ........................................................................ 51
FlashBlog's client-side road map ......................................................... .54
The FlashBlog back-end ......................................................................... .59
Section 2: Building the Application 66
3 Structural Elements 67
FlashBlog's timeline structure .................................................................... 68
FlashBlogClass .................................................................................................. 69
Object-oriented programming .................................................................... 70
Objects and classes .................................................................................. 70
Instantiation .............................................................................................. 71
The new operator .................................................................................... 72
Prototype objects vs. classes ................................................................ 72
XML ....................................................................................................................8 2
XML syntax ................................................................................................ 82
XML and Flash applications .................................................................. 85
Parsing the XML object .......................................................................... 97
Whitespace ................................................................................................ 98
Case study: FlashBlog message templates ...................................... 1 13
4 Building the FlashBlog templates 127
FlashBlog's templates .................................................................................. 128
Markup and templates ........................................................................ 129
Template structure ................................................................................ 13 2
Text fields ........................................................................................................ 13 4
Table of Contents
Resizing text fields ................................................................................ 137
Objects ............................................................................................................ 142
Why use an Object? .............................................................................. 142
Creating a FlashBlog template .................................................................. 146
The getlnfo function ............................................................................ 151
5 Developing the Message Display Module 155
FlashBlog: markup SWF .............................................................................. 156
The getlnfo function ............................................................................ 158
Dynamic resizing and positioning ...................................................... 160
Preloading the template SWF ............................................................ 161
loading external movies ............................................................................ 161
duplicateMovieClip ...................................................................................... 163
duplicateMovieClip versus attachMovie .......................................... 164
Using Array notation ............................................................................ 166
Debugging ...................................................................................................... 178
How do I debug Flash files? ................................................................ 179
The Debugger .......................................................................................... 185
6 User Interface Components 189
Flash Ul Component Sets .......................................................................... 190
What is a component? .......................................................................... 191
When should a component be used? .............................................. 194
FlashBlog Ul: the console .......................................................................... 195
Inside the console .................................................................................. 197
How will it work? .................................................................................. 197
Components dissected ........................................................................ 199
Components and Flash applications ................................................2 06
ScrollPane ...................................................................................................... 207
How does it work? ................................................................................ 208
7 Behind the scenes 1: PHP 225
Introducing PHP ............................................................................................ 226
Flash applications and PHP ..................................................................2 27
XML and PHP ................................................................................................ 239
Parsing an XML file in PHP .................................................................. 245
Access permissions ................................................................................ 272
Flash and PHP ................................................................................................ 277
Retrieving XML remotely ............................................................................ 286
8 Behind the Scenes II: MySQL and Data Storage 293
lntroduc~ng databases ................................................................................ 294
SQL ............................................................................................................ 297
FlashBlog's MySQL structure .................................................................... 298
Using PHP and MySQL with Flash ........................................................... .301
Foundation Flash MX Applications
Securing sensitive database information ........................................ 301
Case study: completing the Message Display Module ..................... .325
Server file structure ..............................................................................3 25
Configuration files ........................................................................................3 38
9 FlashBlog: Plugging it together 349
FlashBlog Ul components ......................................................................... .350
Integrating the ProgressBarPlus and MessageBox into FlashBlog .. 360
Enhancing the back-end ............................................................................. .375
Configuration file .................................................................................. 376
Saving configuration files .......................................................................... 379
PHP and file i/o ..................................................................................... .379
Reading and writing XML files ............................................................ 384
FlashBlog configuration settings interface ........................................... .384
Creating the configuration interface ............................................... .384
Parsing XML ............................................................................................ 393
Centralizing the Message Display Module ............................................ 409
The posting interface .................................................................................. 413
Housekeeping ................................................................................................4 38
10 Interface design 453
FlashBlog login interface ............................................................................ 454
Shared objects ..............................................................................................4 57
CheckBox component ................................................................................ 465
Font symbols .................................................................................................. 469
Authentication and security ...................................................................... 490
Authenticating users on the client-side .......................................... 491
Section 3: Further Resources 534
11 Departure Lounge 535
Techniques ......................................................................................................5 36
LoadVars vs. XML .................................................................................. 538
Tools ............................................................................................................... .543
More PHP ................................................................................................ 543
ASP ............................................................................................................ 543
Flash Remoting ..................................................................................... .544
Flash MX components ......................................................................... .545
DataGrid ....................................................................................................5 45
Extending FlashBlog .................................................................................... 547
CommentBlog ....................................................................................... .547
MultiBlog ..................................................................................................5 50
Table of Contents
Appendix A- Installing Apache, PHP, and MySQL 555
Installing and configuring Apache, PHP, and MySQL on
Microsoft Windows ...................................................................................... 556
Installing and configuring Apache ................................................... .557
Installing and configuring PHP .......................................................... 561
Installing and configuring MySQL ...................................................... 565
Appendix B- PHP Resources 571
Authors' homepages ............................................................................ 571
PHP for Flash links ................................................................................ 571
Software homepages ............................................................................ 571
Setup tools .............................................................................................. 572
PHP editors .............................................................................................. 572
PHP forums .............................................................................................. 572
PHP web resources ................................................................................ 572
Hosting companies supporting PHP .................................................. 573
Index 575