Flash :: Best Practices For Architecture Of Flash Site?

Full Flash Site - Site Architecture Problem
Sorry for this post, but i'm really having trouble grasping the idea of multiple clips, transitions and the scripting to make it all happen.

I have been fiddling with flash for over 3 years now and should be alot farther along, I just wish i had spent as much time on flash as I have on Photoshop.

I now have my own domain, and want to make a fully flash site, as imageReady rollovers just don't get it for me anymore and I want to make a nice site with some impact...queue the flash guru's

The site i'm looking at and want to model as an experiment is www.desalledesigns.com

as far as I can tell, I need the following movie clips

1. transition (to include a preloader... close one content, preload scene, open next content)
2. content1
3. content2
4. content3
5. intro (actually would be a scene)
6. and so on.

is there a tutorial around that dives into this type of site organization?

Flash Site Architecture
Hey guys,

Been a long time xhtml/css developer, and now want to develop my flash skills a little futher.

I want to revamp one of my older sites into a flash site. The thing is, there are around 30 xhtml pages... So the problem is, I need to find a way of ensuring that the SWF file isnt going to load the whole file in one go because that would be huge...

To get a better idea of where im coming from, take a look at the PSP web site at www.yourpsp.com ... now click through some links and you will notice that when you go a different page there is a loading icon... which is loading the relevant part of the flash document...

This works well, because you only download what you need. My question is, is this using seperate scenes or SWF files which are linked? And what is the best way to layout your site, if you have as many pages as I do, use multiple scenes or create individual FLAs for different sections

comments are welcome!

Site Architecture - FLASH Menus Driving HTML Content?
I'm not quite sure if this is the best FORUM for this question...but...here it is -

My question revolves around the conventions used when employing FLASH menus that are designed to navigate through HTML content.

The architecture I’m most familiar with is the use of HTML FRAMES to implement this type of structure. One frame receiving the .swf menu, the other/s receiving HTML content dictated by the FLASH menu.

I’m wondering if there are any other approaches to this type of layout that differ form the technique described above. If so, what would they be and how are they implemented.

The other aspect to this question is how the set up a FRAMES document to be search engine compatible; i.e. to ensure that the FRAMES document that carries the content pages (the holder for lack of a better description) is the page that becomes the URL registered rather then the documents that contain the content. This seems to be a problem with this type of architecture. I’m wondering if anyone has a clue how to work around this situation.

THANKS IN ADVANCE!

FMS And Site Architecture
Hi,

I am interested in purchasing FMS but I have several questions that could affect my application's architecture.

My application offers users to upload videos. Once a video has been uploaded it is available for other users to view (which is where FMS comes in).
I was hoping to save the videos in the database (in BLOB's, etc), but after reading about FMS I am not sure this is possible.
Does FMS require that all video files be stored on the filesystem? Does this mean I have to write extra code to manage the filesystem myself, or can I setup FMS to stream the videos directly from a database?

Thanks for any help,
nenor

Site Architecture
Ok I'm putting a Flash site together that is essentially one long group of MCs moving from left to right based on mouse movement. The idea is that as you move the mouse right the timeline plays forward faster and faster depending on how far you are right. As you move left the timeline plays in reverse again faster and faster depending on how far you are to the left. Also there will be MCs inside that are clickable and bring up animation boxes

Is this possible and how difficult is the coding? The reason I want this to play in a timeline as opposed to a one big MC with coding that shifts the X axis is because I'd also like to add animation that plays as you get to certain points and not just randomly looping. Thanks.

Site Navigation Approach And Best Practices
Hi there,
I'm having some troubles making traditional site navigation in actionscript 3
the first problem was to export a movieclip for actionscript.

I've got a movieclip which in first frame i call a custom class that extends Sprite Class and has some references to the stage (using ADDED_TO_STAGE event)

It´s working fine, but if I try to export this movieclip for actionscript giving the class name Player and Base Class MovieClip or Sprite to it I got this error

TypeError: Error #1034: Type Coercion failed: cannot convert flash.display::MovieClip@2bfcc8f9 to Player.

I know that is probably the worst way to make it, but i'm a little lost on how to do it...

In AS2 I could give the movieclips indetifiers and then put them on the Stage using attachMovie() and removing using removeMovieClip(), now Adobe says that you can give a Class name and call the movieclip using the code example

var mc:Player = new Player();

add them using addChild() and remove using removeChild();

but which would be the best way to make somthing like this? or, how do you make regular site navigation using AS3?

thanks
Chan

Flash Architecture And Design
I have a general question about the architecture and design of a flash project. I've gone through so many tutorials and the architecture of how flash projects are put together is extremely varied. I'd just like to know when to use what style of architecture to use and when.

Here's a jumping off point.

I'm designing a site that has a main swf with a navigation bar. The navigation buttons call other swf's to the stage. Some swfs consist of a simple form. Others are as substantial as a dynamic inventory section.

How would you structure this site? Would you use the MVC pattern? When is a project large enough to use a such a design pattern?

Thanks

Flash Website Architecture..
Hello!
I was wondering if i was on the right page about building flash sites
I have a project i'm working on where i hav these buttons pop up each one a moviclip and when clicked on they scale..question is when clicked on i wold like to have a external swf eithe rload in on top of the main..and in that external, another button to start some video..there will also be a close button to execute an outro animation.... should i have all my variables and functions on the main page and then just call the function by button..
just would like to know what is the right way to architect a typical flash site...please advise

thank you

Code Design And Architecture With Flash Remoting
Could anyone tell me if I should build my project AS2.0 classes in a certain way because of the Flash Remoting architecture? Or can I just simply combine the code with the visual elements classes. This is a best practice question really. Thanks.

Website Architecture / Flash Navigation Behavior, Etc.
I am a web developer trying my hand at Flash for the first time. I need to build an entire website in Flash--each section (approx 3-5 sections / 18 total pages) of the website has a unique background, audio soundtrack, content, etc., so my question is this: Does it make sense to load all the website images, audio, etc. for every section all at the time of the initial homepage access or is it better practice to have separate Flash movie files for each section of the website, loaded when clicked in the navigation?

I obviously need to do much reading up on this, but also would somebody point me in the right direction by letting me know what menu and/or setting in Flash would control the behavior once a website navigation item were clicked (basically, making the background, content, audio, etc. for one section disappear and subsequently displaying the entire contents of a new section)?

Any advice would be appreciated.

Chronological Flash Player Architecture Diagram
I was giving a talk on RIAs at the beginning of the week, and as part of the preparation I put together a chronological Flash Player architecture diagram. It shows how the Flash player has evolved since FutureSplash through to MX2004 and all the data and media I/O formats as they were introduced.

Thought that some people might find it interesting.

You'll find it on the architecture flyout on the right hand side.
http://www.crashposition.com - click on RIA Seminar notes

happy holidays

jd

Flash Best Practices
Can anyone suggest any best practices when developing a Flash game, which will be used on an html page. For example, are there any best practices when coding that I should follow to have the best possible chance of Search engines at least indexing my game, and in the best of possible worlds, ranking it for terms by use of the SDK program.

I am already, adding metadata (title and description)
Using static text for any textual graphics.

Other than that, I am not sure where to go.

Flash 8 And SEO Best Practices
Can anyone suggest any best practices when developing a Flash game, which will be used on an html page. For example, are there any best practices when coding that I should follow to have the best possible chance of Search engines at least indexing my game, and in the best of possible worlds, ranking it for terms by use of the SDK program.

I am already, adding metadata (title and description)
Using static text for any textual graphics.

Other than that, I am not sure where to go.

Best Practices With 3d In Flash
Does anyone have some best practice suggestions when dealing with importing movie clips into flash and how to optimize the bang / kb of file size??

any help whatsoever would be appreciated!!

Flash Best Practices
I'm working on a Flash project and would like to know what are considered "best practices"
Is it better to keep your flash project in one large file or several small files?Is there any limit to the amount of frames you should use? For example, is it ok to have 1000+ frames?I often hear to avoid using scenes, is this true?Do instance names need to be unique? For example, can I have several MediaPlayback components with the same instance name?

Flash Dev Practices. Give Away The FLA's?
Hi Folks,

I have been subcontracting Flash pieces for a company for a few years and recently they started asking for the FLA files as well.

It seems the real value in what I do for them is of course conceptualing, architecting, and coding visual ideas. There's also a fair amount of original art in the pieces as well. Once that's done, content could be easily swapped out, creating derivative works, art objects re-used, etc. On the other hand, they probably shouldn't need to consult me every time there is a minor content change for their clients.

Just curious as to what everyone's thoughts on the matter and general practices are... sort of an informal survey.

Very curious to hear your experiences,

Paul

Best Practices For Flash Detection
I have a full-flash site I am about to launch that I need to come up with a strategy for on how to bring people into it. The site does not require full-screen or a popup launcher however, it seems like bad form to just throw someone the site without a warning of some kind. Also, I find that some of the auto-redirectors are a little heavy handed and prevent some other users getting into the site so, I prefer not to go that way unless it is bullet-proof.

What do you prefer to do? I am leaning to an entry page - any reasons against it?

-mx

Best Flash Website Practices
Hi there,

I'm creating a flash website of my portfolio and, even though I am not very good with AS, and I'm probably over complicating my life the way I'm doing it, I would also know which is the best/most usable way of creating a Flash website.
What I mean is, I was taught to do the browsing through scenes, but I read somewhere that that's not a very good practice.
So I thought of creating each .swf separately and calling it through a loadMovie, but I got stuck when it goes in the movie, to call back another .swf (meaning, the different sections of the site that are browsed through with the menu buttons).

Does anyone know which would be the best way to set up the flash website?

Thanks,

N.

Best Practices - Resizing Flash Project
I've always wondered if there is a better way to do this. I'm working on a project that will eventually be included on a webpage. After a redesign of the webpage I realize the flash file needs to be resized to fit. However just going in and changing the file's width and height stretches out the content.

My solution in the past has been to create a new file from scratch and just copy and paste timeline, scripts and library into the new file. But this would be impractical for complex files. Is there a way to get flash to resize the document without stretching everything? I would like it to just add extra canvas the way photoshop does when you adjust the canvas size.

Possible?

Hosting Best Practices- Flash Presentation
Hi

I am working on a project for a client that will create a flash presentation using Articulate that will be, with all of the swf's , myp3's and video file, will be 2.5 MB.

The presentation may be viewe by up to 1, 000 people, most likely not simultaneously. I am trying to find an appropriate host and have the following options:

1.) There are several companies out there that say they specialize in hosting flash, but don't have the flash media server. THey use shared servers.

2.) Install on a Dedicated Server

3.) Host with a provider of Flash Media Server....

I was wondering what would best practices for hosting this. Thanks in advance for your help

Dave

Full Browser Flash - Best Practices?
hey all!,

just wondering what would be the best practices for full browser flash "example@kirupasiteoftheweek" something along those lines i have an idea where you have to centre your stage etc...but how large should you make the stage size and your bg or say photoshop files what dimensions should they be??

Also if anyone knows of any good tutorials on it please give us a shout

cheers in advance peeps

Flash Best Practices - Structure Newbie
Delurking, first time post--I've been reading through the forums, but I can't find my answer, so if someone has a link because I'm blind, that's excellent too!

I'm trying to write a portfolio gallery, and I'm uncertain what the best way to optimize user experience is. I'd just like a series of images, and when the user clicks the image or a button, to progress to the next image. Some descriptive text will be available below the image.

Now, is it faster to put everything in the timeline? To load external .swfs? To externally load even the images in those swfs? For the text handling, is it better to pass out some external variable and just use HTML? Should I learn XML and use that instead?

We're using MX 2004. I've tried to ask this sort of question in class, but the teacher is a little hostile and just keeps saying "There is no right way". Which, fine, but I've experienced enough bad flash sites to not want to contribute to more!

Thanks in advance for helping a newbie out.

Best Practices - Flash Image Carousel
When creating an image Carousel in flash for a web page, what are the best practices for loading quickly and changing images?

So for instance, on an ecommerce site, the home page often has a block created in flash in which 4-6 images are included with arrows or image numbers are displayed at the bottom as buttons. The images automatically change to the next ever x seconds unless the user selects an image number or the forward/back arrows.

Obviously, smaller the image the better. But how about best practices for things like:

Do you include one image in the block and then load dynamically the other images? Should all images be dynamically loaded if you want to change them on a daily/weekly basis? Any suggestions for making sure the images, especially the first one is loaded quickly?

Anyone have sample ~gpl code that demonstrates a block like this?

Two examples - kohls.com, jcrew.com

Best Practices For Detecting The Flash 8 Player?
I'm looking for any information or guidance regarding best practices for detecting the flash 8 player.

Any advice is greatly appreciated.

Exception Handling In Flash - Best Practices?
I have just completed a massive project with over 40,000 lines of
actionscript 3 and I realise I didnt use try{}catch{} anywhere...now
this seems pretty bad, but....

I used addEventListener to catch for errors when dealing with errors
with external data (file loads, remoting calls, url requests etc..)
and I used logic for any null pointer type exceptions that occured
during development, e.g.

if(movieclipInstance != null && movieClipInstance is MovieClip &&
movieClipInstance.parameter == thing)
{
//process stuff with movieclipInstance here

}

Stuff i've been reading says its takes more resources to catch
exceptions than to logic them out or use event listeners, and articles
about exception handling for other languages e.g. c# never seem
relevant enough for Flash.

So I am wondering what approaches other actionscripters use when
dealing with exceptions ... and where might be a good place to use try
{}catch{}

Flash/AS3 Good Development Practices Question?
Does anyone know what happens when you have Actionscript in the first frame in multiple layers? I am building a Photo Gallery app in order to learn flash and also end up with something useful. I started by making different layers for stuff like Static Variables/Global Variables, Initialization scripts, etc..., so I could have a better idea of where stuff is. Then I came to the realization if these layers run at the same time I will have alot of issues. So is it better just to have one Actionscript layer? or is there a way I can have multiple layers and still control in which order they run(also one layer's script running totally before the next one)?

-Dagon

Architecture
I'm new to Flash but have experience with Director. I am having trouble finding information regarding the best way to structure the following Flash demo. I hope someone can help.

I have 4 sections with almost 3 minutes of voice-over audio in each of the 4 sections. By default the entire demo will play linearly (section 1, 2, 3, and finally 4). But the navigation allows the user to jump to any of the 4 sections at any time. Users can also pause and continue the audio (and animation) at anytime.

With this much audio I am concerned about load times and memory management. Since the user can jump ahead to a section that may not be loaded yet I think I need to have preloaders for each section.

Should each section be a seperate swf files using loadmovie?
Do I need to unload the current swf if the user jumps ahead in order to free up memory?
I guess I'll just use sync sound in the timeline. Is a 3 minute audio file going to cause memory problems in browsers?

This will be considered a high bandwidth only demo so that helps but are there any major issues to watch out for since I have a total of 11-12 minutes of audio?

Sorry this got so long.... any advice will help. Thanks!

Uoa-architecture
Hi everyone,

Check out this site:

www.uoa-architecture.com

What kind of technic those guys used? Is javascript that resizes the site to full screen? And what about the scrolls? Is it just incrementing x and y?

Thanks,
Peter

About The Architecture.
Is it necessary to put all the logic inside a "wrapper" class in order to make the Document Class clearer?

class MyDoc extends Sprite{
private var theLogicHolder:MainLogic
function MyDoc()
{
theLogicHolder = new ManLogic();
}
}

Or is this just a nonsense superfluous stuff (to make the swf bigger and slower)?

Architecture And Methodology
I have a question for anyone who would like to tackle it.

A project in front of me involves a map with nearly 100 different buttons, irregular size. When the user rolls over a button, the area must fade in and out smoothly, and the tween must not be compromised by a premature roll-out. The tween must continue to run it's course.

With a few buttons, this could be achieved by having a boolean flag in the button 'over' and 'out' states, and playing various states of a subordinate mc, that correspond to value of the flag.

What do you think is the best way to go about building this for such a large number of buttons?

MVC Class Architecture
I am starting to craete an application using an MVC class structure. My first stumbling block is in making a decision about where some logic processing is done.

To simplify the issue, if...

I have a Model class, which provides xml data to my application View class.

I have a View class, which provides user inputs to my Controller class.

I have a Control class, which tells the Model to do something based on user input.

So.... in my main screen navigation, the user hits the "next" button. The View tells Controller that "next" button has been hit. Controller tells the Model that the View requires data for the next screen. The Model sends the View the data it needs to show the next screen. The View updates itself using the new data. Sweet.

And my problem is, I need to track what the current screen reference is so the model knows what bit of info to send. Should I track this screen reference in the Controller class (i.e. when user input is sent to Controller, the controller changes the screen ref and then sends that ref to the Model) or should I track it in the Model class (i.e. the Model receives a request to go to next screen, changes the screen ref and updates the data)?

My gut feeling is to put it into the model because it is, after all, a bit of data... but I'm not quite sure.

Any Thoughts?

Class Architecture
Greetings,

I am trying to gain a broader understanding of the Flash class architecture by compiling a map of sorts. My question is where is the functionality of the class taking place. When I open a class from the Flash directory I get something like:

//************************************************** **************************
// ActionScript Standard Library
// Mouse object
//************************************************** **************************

intrinsic class Mouse
{
static function addListener(listener:Object):Void;
static function hide():Number;
static function removeListener(listener:Object):Boolean;
static function show():Number;
}

Basically definitions. Where are the bells and whistles for these methods. They have to DO something.

Any Help will be appreciated

Regards
P

Architecture Question
Hi, I was wondering if I can get some advice/input with a project I am working on. Essentially, the company I work for is tasking me with creating “play for fun” type flash games, such as slots, poker, blah, blah....
These are not multi-user games.

I am skilled with Flash and AS2/AS3, so creating the games is not the issue. The thing is, the software engineers I work with want to adopt an online casino type architecture, which would require the end user to download and install a desktop application (.exe). This app would then download the game clients. The software guys feel this is a better approach, as the games are downloaded only once and there is more control.
I am against this approach, as the original idea was to keep things as “thin” as possible on the client side. It seems counter intuitive. They are concerned primarily with server load and geo-location. I tried to explain that server load can be addressed with redundant web servers sharing the load. There are hundreds of sites running flash games...

So, besides the obvious benefits of having the Flash run directly off of a website, is there anything else I can mention to the software folks to help justify my case?

Any thoughts?

Thanks in advance,
Rich

Architecture Choices
We are designing an FMS application that will need to stream media as well as send data back and forth to a server. As far as I can see, I have several options for an overall architecture:

1. Flash Player -> FMS -> App Server

All communication, including streams and data goes through the FMS API. Media is handled by streams. Data is handled by NetStream.call from the client or through Remote Shared Objects to the FMS server. FMS acts as the middleware by then invoking java classes on the app server using NetConnection.call(), ie Flash Remoting or using WebServices.

2. FlashPlayer -> FMS
Flash Player -> AppServer

FMS handles media streams only. Data travels directly to the AppServer from FlashPlayer via either:
a. Web Services
b. Flex Data Services
c. HTTP calls

I'm interested in which approaches you guys have taken and what your experiences have been. Thanks.

AS3 Component Architecture
I would appreciate any references on how to write components in AS3 for CS3 from scratch.

I have thorough experience with creating AS 2 components. So far, I get the basic AS3 differences like using addchild instead of attachmovieclip but I don't know what are the component specific differences. From looking at the AS3 component source, it looks like you have to use componentEvent instead of dispatching a "regular" event. Are there any other component specific differences?

AS3 Source Architecture
I am trying to view the base class source files but not all of them are where I expect them to be.

Most of them can be found here:
Program FilesAdobeAdobe Flash CS3enFirst RunClasses

I would expect flash.display.sprite to be located under ..FP9flashdisplay, but only the BitMap class is there.
I would expect the flash.display.MovieClip to be there as well but it is under the ..FP9 directory.

Help On Architecture Matrix
Hi all,

Really need help in this... have been struggling for this project for 3 months.... for a newbie in AS3... I have been tried to do it all in code ... then not success... shift to timeline... then unresolve problem.....

Please take a look....

Thanks in advance.

Florence

STANDARD ARCHITECTURE? Plz Help
Hello, this may seem like a silly question... But I am having real trouble grasping something and I can't seem to get a solid opinion about it.

I am making my website at the moment, and this is my first time really stepping it up with AS3 and no timeline use. In your opinion what is the correct architecture for a site? I am so confused I keep running around in circles building onto my site and then removing it. If you are having trouble understanding what I'm talking about, I am saying what is the correct website style/methods/architecture/etc comprised of? is it swfs loaded in dynamically? is it all called in via AS using the child list... or is there another way.

What I'm really getting at is what would you guys consider the "ideal" architecture for a standard 4 page (home, about, port, contact) website? The only dynamic data I need is the port, and home page would have a news feed...thats about it.

Any thoughts?

Thank you very much

Sound Architecture
I want to build an swf file with numerous invisible buttons layered on top of an image. Each button will trigger a small sound file - one word. Note, for each button there is a different word, so using a sharedLibrary won't reduce file size. Question is: What is the best way to build this file.

A. Attach the sound to the invisible buttons timeline - the rollOver state

Hmmmm... It would be nice to have one invisible button service the whole file (file size) - if I put the sound file on the timeline I will have to create upwards of 15 button symbols.

B. Create a button that plays a sound file that is not attached to the button timeline.

Hmmmmm... the code is attached to the wrapper so I can use one invisible button symbol to service the whole file. Can I place a sound file into a library, swf file, that isn't loaded until it is called? If so, I can reduce download times - the file is only called when it is needed (why download numerous soundfiles when the user only wants to access two sound files); thus, if it isn't needed it isn't called. However, it is important that the file plays just as the users mouse roll's over the button. The target bandwidth for this file is 56K

Any suggestions regarding ...

A. Where to place the soundfile ( a library, swf file, button timeline? )

B. What code to attach to the button to download the file that plays when
the rollover occurs.

Thanks in Advance

Last Radius

Movie Architecture
My problem is this... I have a very large .swf and .fla.

I usually organize my movies into smaller movies, use the loadmovie action to control them, and place loaders on each movie as needed. However, for this piece, it is a tutorial of sorts and my client would like it to all fully load before the user can see any of it. Since the user can explore the piece in a nonlinear format, it is not possible to load the movie partly before having it play as they may click on a button that takes them to the last section of the movie, as their first option.

The .swf is almost 2meg, and the .fla is 18 meg organized by scenes, both are obviously quite large for flash.

I have made everything I can a symbol, and optimized everything else.

My question...
Am I working correctly or is there another way to organize this project?

Stucture / Mc Architecture
I'm new to Flash but have experience with Director. I am having trouble finding information regarding the best way to structure the following Flash demo. I hope someone can help.

I have 4 sections with almost 3 minutes of voice-over audio in each of the 4 sections. By default the entire demo will play linearly (section 1, 2, 3, and finally 4). But the navigation allows the user to jump to any of the 4 sections at any time. Users can also pause and continue the audio (and animation) at anytime.

With this much audio I am concerned about load times and memory management. Since the user can jump ahead to a section that may not be loaded yet I think I need to have preloaders for each section.

Should each section be a seperate swf files using loadmovie?
Do I need to unload the current swf if the user jumps ahead in order to free up memory?
I guess I'll just use sync sound in the timeline. Is a 3 minute audio file going to cause memory problems in browsers?

This will be considered a high bandwidth only demo so that helps but are there any major issues to watch out for since I have a total of 11-12 minutes of audio?

Sorry this got so long.... any advice will help. Thanks!

Modular Architecture
If I have a function in the main timeline called sayHello(), and a symbol on the stage called button_on_stage that has some event handlers in its timeline. How do those event handlers call sayHello()...?? Can they?

And better yet - If I publish the whole thing out as a swf or a swc and in another movie

Code:

var ldr:Loader = new Loader();
ldr.load(new URLRequest("whatever.swf"));
ldr.contentLoaderInfo.addEventListener(Event.COMPLETE, loadHandler);

function loadHandler(e:Event):void
{
addChild(ldr.content.btn_on_stage) ;
}

can the code on btn_on_stage's timeline still sayHello()??

The idea is to create a kind of modular framework, where a core application loads external swiffs as modules, then rather than displaying the swiff as a whole, it grabs library items from it and displays them individually. Scope issues come with giving those library items some functionality. I'd like to give them direct access to functions in their modules main timeline or document class, without the core having to know any specifics about how that module is working.

Is this possible? Or am I just chasing my tail?

Thanks.

Asfunction Architecture Question
I have a Flash file that is adding successive lines of text to a dynamic text field, each line anchored with a link that uses the asfunction method to call a flash function with one integer parameter.

The function call works fine. All asfunction calls point to the same function.

However, asfunction calls further down the text field (from the top) take longer to trigger their associated function.

I tested this by placing a trace at the very start of the function being called. The trace does not appear until after the delay when the link is clicked.

When the number of links in the text field grow to 6 or more, the delay can be measured in seconds.

Does anyone have ANY clue as to what is happening here?

Thanks,
Omonubi

Architecture For Html Popup
i wanna make a portfolio section in my site. because i dont want my jpegs to flip out...i wanna open a new toolbarless html window in a certain position and a certain size. So on the flash button i do...

on (release) {
getURL ("http://www.geocities.com/southshoregraphics/davidflash.html?964935104130", "_top");
}

Then in the html of the address it's calling on i put...



Flash won't preview java within itself i heard so do i have this right?

Concept Question...Architecture ?
Just want to get some opinions...

Keeping in mind I'm using V5 - I have a gallery with three sections, each of which will display 20 images max (displayed one at a time - image dimensions of 376 x 176 pixels). I'm leaning towards placing each image within it own swf and the loading into a ContainerMC in my main movie from a folder containing all my image examples.

Does this sound like overkill (ton of files). Currently I have my selections loaded into individual frames of one swf, though, I can see the file size ballooning and I have no idea how big it well get.

Any opinions or thoughts?

Help With Understanding File Architecture
Hello, and thanks for looking at my post. I was given this FLA. I can't seem to get it to work. In the error report its asking for three classes in a specific folder order. As far as I think that I placed them in the right locations. I still cannot get this to work however, and its driving me crazy. Whats weirder is I got it to work on my desktop, and then once I moved the files to my "work" folder it stopped functioning...and after bringing it back to my desktop it doesn't work again.

Attached is the file architecture all zipped up.

can someone please take a look and see what I'm doing wrong? I'm going nuts!

here is the file

http://andy.redtempest.net/file_arc_all.zip

Skinning Architecture In AS2 - Best... Any Practice?
Somehow I totally forgot that a swf can not use assets from another swf that is loaded (e.g., http://www.5etdemi.com/blog/archives...dmovie-issues/). I am working on a project which is basically a component for which I want to provide dynamically loadable skins (only one of the (possibly many) skins will be loaded at runtime based on the configuration). I was thinking that I can have all the control code in the main swf, and then use attachMovie() to load skin assets from the dynamically loaded skin_xxx.swf. No such luck!

Using the sharedpoint workaround (a single sharedpoint mc runtime-exported from each skin file/runtime-imported into the main swf) does allow attachMovie to work with a single skin file, but a) all the skin swfs would be loaded by the main swf on startup which i am trying to avoid and b) the skin swf libraries will contain assets with identical linkageids so that wouldn't work anyway [ok, so the assets could have unique "skin_" prefixes, so b) is moot].

Using Madarco's attachMovieAnywhere solution could work for this, the only downside being that the mc would not be available right after attachMovie() is called, but only some time after, so the already existing control architecture would have to be adjusted for that (essentially switching from synchronous to asynchronous code flow) - including some skinnable third-party components I am using whose code would have to be hacked with a work-around for this, which might prove arbitrarily hard/unreliable.

So - is the answer that dynamic asset library module loading is not feasible with AS2? How would you go about solving the problem of a single control module and various skin asset modules?

I wouldn't be suprised if this is impossible after I found that proper dynamic module loading (more code-related, though) to be very hard with Flex 2/AS3 (whole books are being written about this) - and they seem to have given some thought to it there! Well this is off-topic anyhow.

Architecture Question...where To Put The Code
Newbie here, so please be gentle and explicit (no detail is too much to give or insulting to me).

I'm hoping one of you architecture/design gurus can help me with this. I am trying to use good principals of design and not have code scattered all over the place and also use OO as much as possible. Therefore I would appreciate very much some advice on best practices/good design for the following situation.

On my main timeline I have a frame where I instantiate all my objects. These objects refer to movieClips and textFields etc. that are on a content frame on that timeline. I have all the instantiation code in a function called initialize() which I call from the content frame. All this works just fine. One of the objects on the content frame is a movieClip which I allow the user to go forward and backward in using some navigation controls. Again, the object that manages all that is instantiated on the main timeline in the initialize() function and works fine too. So here's my question. I would like to add some interactive objects on some of the frames of the movieClip I allow the user to navigate forward and backward in (lets call it NavClip) . For example on frame 1 I might have a button, on frame 2 and 3 nothing, on frame 4 maybe a clip I allow the user to drag around etc. So I thought I would add a layer to NavClip where I will have key frames and put the various interactive assets on the appropriate key frames. So now I don't know where to put the code that instantiates these objects (i.e. the objects that know how to deal with the events and such for each of these interactive assets). I tried putting the code on my main timeline, but realized that I can't address the interactive assets until the NavClip is on the frame that holds the particular asset. I'm trying not to sprinkle code all over the place, so what do I do? I thought I might be able to address the assets by just providing a name for the asset and not a reference to the asset itself, and then address the asset that way (i.e. NavClip["interactive_mc"] instead of NavClip.interactive_mc), but then I thought that's not good since I think there is no type checking when you use the NavClip["interactive_mc"] form.

I hope I'm not being too dim a bulb on this and have missed something really obvious. Thanks in advance to anyone who can help me use a best practice.

Architecture Of Basic App With No Components
I'm coming from an extensive background in AS1.0 and 2.0, and some level of 3.0. I consider myself fluent inI'm coming from an extensive background in AS1.0 and 2.0, and some level of 3.0. However, I'm having a surprisingly hard time understanding how a basic flashcom app works. It seems most of the information I've found relies on the use of components, which I want to avoid as much as possible. If someone could point in the right direction, or give me the basic architecture, that would be wonderful.

Some slightly more specific questions:
- Do remote SharedObject writes get broadcasted to all connections?
- What is the role of server-side ActionScript? It seems to me that after accepting/rejecting the connection almost everything could be scripted client-side, with writing/reading to various remote SharedObjects. However it looks like all the components have extensive server-side AS.

To give a practical example, how would I construct a very basic chat? I know everything about how to create a Flash interface to do this, and in fact have worked on messaging apps where I was sending information via LoadVars to a database, and the database gurus were handling the rest. But how would I connect users, and have their messages broadcast and read by all other connected users?

Thanks for any tips, I know this is a painfully broad question, but I'm just having a hard to getting kick started as I sift through the mosterous pile of component code...