Dynamic Flash
- Started
- Last post
- 15 Responses
- sheepman
first attempt at making a flash site that a client can update.
it's a photography site. basically need to have the images pulled out of a folder that the client will have access to.
is this a total pain in the arse? is it worth the hassel? any tutorials or good books out there? i checked flash kit and google. didn't find much... most dynamic flash tutorials deal with text.
i know my way around AS, and i've got a buddy that's ace with php and mySQL. between the two of us, i think we can manage. just need a start point.
anyone? thx.
- mirola0
this might be what you need
- blend20
yay,
I'm working on something similar. Shouldn't be too hard to manage. The hard bit is the backend solution. You will need to create a list of the contents of the folder in xml-form and then just parse the info to dynamically load the pictures. It gets interesting if you need to scale or rotate the pictures server-side. Even then there are free solutions for Apache servers.
- unfittoprint0
you can either use xml if the site's content it's not updated in a daily/weekly basis, or try to integrate it with a more robust backend, php+MySQL.
- stewart0
i did also something like that recently:
http://www.daad.nlbut that client has Photoshop - so we designed a grid so they can choose the pixeldimensions of the pictures.
give the pictures names like 02_04.jpg (chapter 2, image 4) and load dynamicly in flash.
- sheepman0
thanks. going to start tooling around with this....
- sheepman0
stewart - that migth be the way to go for me as well.
the client is a photogrpaher and has photoshop and has already told me that he can have all the images be the same size.
what was your backend solution for daad.nl? i'd like to be able to keep it as neat as possible.
- stewart0
there was no backend at all in this - i'm not a programmer
:_(
all images are loaded from folders on the server dynamicly in flash. the same way you load other swf's in flash, but then jpegs.
the client is very pleased with this solution.
note: do not use progressive jpeg's for this trick
- unknown0
the easiest way is to use a very simple PHP script to go through your image directory and return the names of the images. You then use this list of names to load the images in flash. So if you add a picture to the directory, flash can "see" it.
This is a really flimsy way to do things, but it's fast and easy.
- mirola0
you've gotta think about how your client is going to load the images up too, i suppose. you don't wanna teach him how to do ftp do you?
your mate will need to create an upload script. while he's at it, get him to create a script that will output the file names in xml. then write an xml parser that will read all the names and display them using loadMovie() in flash and bob's your legitimate mother's brother.
- unknown0
get him to email them to you, YOU do it, and charge him a monthly fee!!
:))
- JamesEngage0
would you want to do the updates every month though?
can get tedious.
- jpolk0
Though, i know everyone screams XML! XML!- honestly, a database SSL & loadVars is such a better solution.
XML has its place, but it is a real bitch to write on the fly from flash or SSL (and even more so, to manually update everytime you need to add a photo). it's also far more of a bitch to parse everything out . Load Vars keeps it simple .
Come up with a solid DB schema and stick with it: you'll have fewer problems and a far more scalable application.
- tomkat0
i also think that PHP+MySql is the most solid solution..
due to lack of those features I'm working on something similar with the texts, thumbnails and images coming from a textfile.
works fine..
- estlin0
I actually just made a photography site that allows the client to run a flash frontend to add in the names of the images he wants, rearrange the order, add captions...only thing it doesn't do is upload the images (should of thought of that, but the client knows how to ftp). Uses very simple php to write to a simple text file database.
- creole0
My friend built this website:
http://www.tonybaker.com/