Laura Thomson, Mozilla Corporation
Luke Welling, OmniTI
Track: PHP
Date: Monday, July 07
Time: 1:45pm - 5:15pm
Location: Salon H
Macromedia Flash builds vector-based files that can be delivered over the Internet. They can contain images, animation, sound and scripted interactivity.
As programmers, rather than artists, we have always had our reservations about Flash. It has a reputation for sites that while flashy are hard to use, slow to load, and often incompatible with Linux. However, Flash can do things that HTML cannot. It can provide a rich, animated experience to visitors, and need not require large files. Used judiciously, it can be an asset to your sites.
Once you stop using Flash for fluffy, distracting stuff and start trying to do useful things with it, you run into the same sort of issues that you face in other dynamic web development environments: How do I connect the user interface to a database? How do I store input from the user? How do I connect the HTML and Flash parts of my site? How do I generate Flash movies in real time?
As with similar questions asked about HTML, a good answer to these questions is "With PHP". We will look at:
Connecting PHP to a Flash user interface
Generating Flash files dynamically with PHP and Ming
Connecting databases to Flash via PHP
