1. XML and Flash
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2. Communicating with external sources
Adobe Animate (Flash) supports a number of methods of communicating with external data sources.
XML
URLRequest and URLLoader classes, and then listen for the complete event (AS3)
PhP/MySQL / Coldfusion etc
Web Services
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3. XML Recap XML is a simple but very flexible text information system
Originally developed to meet the challenges of large-scale electronic publishing
XML is widely used to exchange data on the web and elsewhere including Flash documents
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4. XML Vs. HTML
XML is designed to carry data and describe such data whereas HTML was designed to display data and to focus on how it looks
HTML is about displaying information
XML is about describing information in a universal format
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5. XML Example
<?xml version="1.0"?> <MUSIC_COLLECTION> <MUSIC> <ALBUM>Lovebox</ALBUM> <BAND>Groove Armada</BAND> <ALBUMCOVER>groovearmada.jpg</ALBUMCOVER> <LABELCODE> </LABELCODE> <PRICE Currency="£">10.25</PRICE> </MUSIC> <ALBUM>My Way</ALBUM> <BAND>Frank Sinatra</BAND> <ALBUMCOVER>franksinatra.jpg</ALBUMCOVER> <LABELCODE> </LABELCODE> <PRICE Currency="£">12.00</PRICE> </MUSIC_COLLECTION>
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6. XML Structure An XML file consists of tags within tags
Known as Children inside Nodes
Allows for data to be stored in a structured manner.
There are two albums in the music collection
The first album is Lovebox
The last artist in the collection is Frank Sinatra
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7. Writing XML
Like actionscript, XML has its own strict syntax rules which must be followed if the file is to be read at all by Flash.
Incorrectly formatted files will often simply fail to be read.
To check the structure of your XML file and/or edit it, you can use XMLSpy (a commercial product)
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8. Why XML and Animate?
Animate (Flash) is capable of reading in and processing a structured XML file
The processed data can then be used to control animation in Animate or to fetch data in to the Rich User Interface.
E.g. If you have an XML file containing data for a quiz then Animate knows how many questions it contains
Or access product Information from Amazon and display this data in Animate.
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9. XML and Animate XML in AS3 is very different from AS2
One of the major changes in AS3 is how you deal with XML content (i.e.in AS2 you had to use more complex statements to find a specific node in the data.)
One of the introductions is Ecmascript for XML, known as E4X for short.
E4X is a new class which introduces a new way to look at the XML strings using native actionscript objects.
rence/actionscript/3/XML.html
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10. XML and Animate: example (AS3)
<Books> <Book ISBN=" "> <title>Sherlock Holmes</title> <author>Arthur Conan</author> </Book> <Book ISBN=" "> <title>may brown</title> <author>sue Haskett</author> <Book ISBN=" "> <title>The great gatsby</title> <author>F. Scott Fitzergerald</author> </Books>
each box in the above image = a node.
main root node = Books
four child nodes = Book.
The Book node contains the ISBN information
= attribute.
book's title and author information is stored in
child nodes aptly called title and author.
Ref for above:
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11. XML and Animate: AS3
In order to load the XML data in Animate we need to do the following:
Create a variable to hold an instance of the XML Class.
Create an instance of the URLLoader Class to load the XML file.
Pass the content of the XML file to the XML instance variable once the file has completed loading.
Ref.
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12. XML and Animate: AS3
In order to load the XML data in Animatewe need to do the following:
1. Create a variable to hold an instance of the XML Class.
var myXML:XML;
Ref.
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13. XML and Animate: AS3
In order to load the XML data in Animate we need to do the following:
2. Create an instance of the URLLoader Class to load the XML file.
var myXML:XML;
var myLoader:URLLoader = new URLLoader(); myLoader.load(new URLRequest( “book.xml"));
Ref.
The URLLoader Class is the class responsible for loading all binary and
textual data.Once we create an instance of the URLLoader Class, we can
use its .load method to load the XML file.
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14. XML and Animate: AS3
In order to load the XML data in Animate we need to do the following:
3. Pass the content of the XML file to the XML instance variable once the file has completed loading.
var myXML:XML;
var myLoader:URLLoader = new URLLoader(); myLoader.load(new URLRequest( “book.xml"));
myLoader.addEventListener(Event.COMPLETE, processXML);
Ref.
…. to process the XML file we must make sure that it has been fully Loaded…to do that we need to
create a listener that checks for the loading process to complete and then process the XML file.
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15. XML and Animate: AS3
var myXML:XML; var myLoader:URLLoader = new URLLoader(); myLoader.load(new URLRequest(“book.xml")); myLoader.addEventListener(Event.COMP LETE, processXML);
function processXML(e:Event):void { myXML = new XML(e.target.data); trace(myXML); }
This code will trigger the listener
function processXML when the
XML file finishes loading.
To create the contents
of this function… we need
this function to assign the
contents of our XML file as the
XML data of our XML instance
variable:
e.target refers to the object that
loaded the XML file…{{event
object sent to the function to
retrieve the actual data from the
loaded file.}}
Ref.
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16. XML and Animate (AS3) To get the authors from the data
trace (myXML.Book.author);
<author>Arthur Conan</author>
<author>sue haskett</author>
<author>F. Scott fitzergerald</author>
To get the authors from the data without <author>
trace (myXML.Book.author.text());
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17. XML and Animate (AS3)
To get an attribute you use the attribute function
trace (myXML.Book.attribute (“ISBN”));
Or a shortcut is trace
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18. XML and Animate (AS3) To get the first author (without author tags)
trace (myXML.Book.author.text()[0]);
To get the second author (without author tags)
trace (myXML.Book.author.text()[1]);
To get all the children nodes
trace(myXML.*);
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19. XML and Animate (AS3)
To drill down and access the text value of each of the Book node
trace(myXML.Book.*);
To get ISBN of the first book
To get book title for ISBN
"));
Ref.
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20. XML and Animate (AS3)
.length() method = can be used to count the number of children a node has or a number of a specific type of children a node has.
For example, to check how many author nodes are present in our book selection we can use the length() method this way:
trace(myXML.author.length());
Ref.
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21. XML and Animate (AS3)
We can also easily count the number of all children in our XML file regardless of type by using the asterisk sign :
trace(myXML.*.length());
Ref.
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22. XML and Animate (AS3)
A loop can be used to cycle through the XML file to get the content of all the nodes.
function processXML(e:Event):void { myXML = new XML(e.target.data); for (var i:int = 0; i<myXML.*.length(); i++){ trace("The ISBN is " + + " and it's author is " + myXML.Book.author[i];) }; }
Ref.
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23. To display XML in Animate (AS3)
Use the toXMLString () method to return a string representati on of the XML object regardless of whether the XML object has simple content or complex content.
function processXML(e:Event):void { myXML = new XML(e.target.data);
textArea.text = myXML.Book.author.text()[0].toXMLString();
Ref.
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24. Working example(AS3) See main_example in xml_as3.0 folder on BB
var myXML:XML; var myLoader:URLLoader = new URLLoader(); myLoader.load(new URLRequest(“book.xml")); myLoader.addEventListener(Event.COMPLETE, processXML);
function processXML(e:Event):void { myXML = new XML(e.target.data);
textArea.text = xml.Book.author.text()[0].toXMLString(); }
See main_example in xml_as3.0 folder on BB
Ref.
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25. Reusability.... Discussion
Define: Ability of a item that allows it to be used repeatedly unlike a disposable item( Reusability: capable of being used again or repeatedly (
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26. Resources http://www.developphp.com/list_flash_video.php
Extra:
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