Owen van Dijk

As you might have noticed, the current incarnation of Macromedia Flash, Macromedia Flash MX 2004, has evolved from a simple Web animation package to a full-fledged IDE that allows both developers and designers to work with graphics, animation, video, and sound and spice it up with external sources like databases and Web services. The more adventurous among us can hook it up to servers like Macromedia Flash Communication Server or the XMLSocket server, Unity 2, adding streaming video and sound, multiuser environments, and Web cam support to their applications. For beginners, the possibilities seem endless and the learning curve is steep. In this article I will guide you through the new data architecture introduced in Macromedia Flash MX 2004 and explain the concepts and ideas that allow you to work with external data. Soon you will be crafting "Rich Internet Applica... (more)