Flash interface connecting to .NET, SQL??

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aspidistra - 19 Feb 2007 11:35 GMT

hi
I am an actionscript newbie but have been given the task of designing a
navigation menu in flash that has to connect to a database - the menu items
have to be marked - unread, mandatory etc. and have to pull back database
information to display then be marked as read.

Please can anyone advise in general terms how to go about this?
(Would it be using the Data Connections Wizard and Datagrid Colum Editor?)

Many thanks
Em

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MotionMaker - 19 Feb 2007 12:28 GMT

Cannot comment whether these meet your needs but here is some background on the
Data Connection Wizard.

The http://www.adobe.com/devnet/flash/articles/datawizards.html is a Flash
extension introduced with Flash MX 2004. It was designed with the
non-programmer in mind. In addition to the Adobe link there are other pages you
can find if you Google Flash Data Extension Wizard.

There may be some issues if you are using Flash 8. See
http://www.adobe.com/cfusion/knowledgebase/index.cfm?id=60b46608 for the work
around.

If you use the DataWizard you still have the server side programming in
ASP.Net and the data objects such as ADO.Net that the Data Wizard will not be
assisting you.

In general Flash Actionscript 2.0 has the XML, LoadVars and XMLConnector
classes used for data communications. These are the basis for the wizard and
the Flash Components the wizard creates. You can look at the
http://livedocs.macromedia.com/flash/8/main/00002872.html,
http://livedocs.macromedia.com/flash/8/main/00002879.html,
http://livedocs.macromedia.com/flash/8/main/00002329.html and
http://livedocs.macromedia.com/flash/8/main/00002336.html for examples of data
communications via Actionscript. Compare these examples with your skills and
the wizard to determine which is best for your.

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aspidistra - 19 Feb 2007 13:28 GMT

Thanks Motionmaker....since posting I have read more, from the flash
documentation it seems to suggest using the RDBMS Resolver and
WebServiceConnector for SQL data.

I'm not sure as I do not know how it all works but I will try this method.
There seems so many ways to connect to data is is a daunting task trying to
figure out the most relevant or secure:confused;

Em

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MotionMaker - 19 Feb 2007 14:26 GMT

The server side does not need Flash to develop as long as you have an idea what
data you need from Flash and need to send to Flash. Thus you can use simple
HTML forms to develop and test the server side and just list the data returned
from the server for testing.

For the Flash side, you need to determine your UI design and user interface
with that design. You can do this with or without FLash. Once you have that all
figured out, then you can apply Flash.

You would go with the Flash Data Components primarily because you plan to use
Flash UI components that through component properties you can bind to the data
source. This eliminates the need for the AS programming.

In case you have not stumbled over it, there is a discussion in the Flash 8
docs: http://livedocs.macromedia.com/flash/8/main/00000756.html. There are some
sample apps with Flash 8:
http://livedocs.macromedia.com/flash/8/main/00001095.html,
http://livedocs.macromedia.com/flash/8/main/00001094.html.

As well http://livedocs.macromedia.com/flash/8/main/00001583.html has some
good sections that are not related to the components but provide a perspective.

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Webmaster Forum / Flash / Data Integration / February 2007

Flash interface connecting to .NET, SQL??