Step Outside the Box Part I

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Step Outside the Box Part I
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Theo Rushin Jr

• I am an avid snowboarder and skier always looking
  for the deep powder. When Im not carving my
  way through the trees or dreaming of the next big
  snowfall, I work as a consultant at the National
  Institutes of Health (NIH) where I lead the
  design and development of many web-based
  solutions.
• I have spent the past 6 years establishing myself
  as an expert Coldfusion and Flash Rich Internet
  Application Developer and Trainer. During my 6
  years of web application development I have
  created and supported many enterprise-wide
  web-based applications.

I can be reached at rushint_at_mail.nih.gov or on
the snow
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What is Web 2.0

• New Version of the Web?

New Web Technologies?
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Words and Phrases that Describe Web 2.0

• Standards based
• Social Bookmarking
• AJAX
• RSS
• Web Services
• Tags

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From Web 2.0 Conference

• The Web is a fundamental shift in power toward
  the bottom, toward the people as they organize
  themselves, and away from a small group of people
  who want to impose a policy top-down.

- Pierre Omidyar
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From Wikipedia

• Web 2.0 is a term often applied to a perceived
  ongoing transition of the World Wide Web from a
  collection of websites to a full-fledged
  computing platform serving web applications to
  end users. Ultimately Web 2.0 services are
  expected to replace desktop computing
  applications for many purposes.

http//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_2.0
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From Web 2.0 for Designers

• A vision of the Web in which information is
  broken up into microcontent units that can be
  distributed over dozens of domains. The Web of
  documents has morphed into a Web of data. We are
  no longer just looking to the same old sources
  for information. Now were looking to a new set
  of tools to aggregate and remix microcontent in
  new and useful ways.

- Richard MacManus
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• the web as a platform

- Mike Chambers
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• Design patterns and business models for the next
  generation of software. The shorter term results
  are things like easier sharing of photos with
  your friends and family, finding the most
  interesting things to read, and getting new
  insights on information by combining data like
  rental listings with their locations on a map.
  Longer term, this "architecture of participation"
  could mean harnessing collective intelligence
  across the Internet to solve increasingly
  difficult problems around the world.

- Tim O'Reilly
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How does Flash fit in?

• Web 2.0 is not (and will not be) limited to a
  single set of technologies.
• The Flash Platform is well suited to creating
  applications based on distributed APIs and
  engaging user interfaces.
• Flash brings capabilities that are not possible
  in HTML and easier to implement than AJAX.

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Flash JavaScript Integration Kit

• The Flash/JavaScript Integration Kit was
  developed by Christian Cantrell and Mike Chambers
  at Macromedia.

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Flash JavaScript Integration Kit

• Tested within the following browsers
• Windows IE 6.0
• Windows Firefox 1.0
• Windows Opera 8.0
• Macintosh Opera 8.0
• Macintosh Firefox 1.0
• Safari 1.2.4 and 2.0
• Linux Firefox 1.0.4

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Flash JavaScript Integration Kit

• Supports the following data types
• Object
• Array
• String
• Number
• Boolean
• Date
• null
• undefined

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Flash JavaScript Integration Kit

• Project Sources
• OSFlash
• http//osflash.org/doku.php?idflashjs
• Flash / JavaScript Integration Kit (Beta)
• http//weblogs.macromedia.com/flashjavascript/

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Flash JavaScript Integration Kit

• Live Examples
• Macromedia XML News Aggregator
• http//weblogs.macromedia.com/mxna/reports/categor
  yFeedReport/
• Extending AJAX with the Flash JavaScript
  Integration Kit
• http//www.krishadlock.com/clients/informit/Extend
  ingAJAX/

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Flash JavaScript Integration Kit

• Tutorial
• Danny Patterson has written an excellent tutorial
  about using the Macromedia Flash / JavaScript
  Integration Kit. The tutorial is located at
• http//www.communitymx.com/content/article.cfm?cid
  D7491printtrue
• I have supplied a reprint of that article for you
  use.

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Flash 8 External Interface

• The External Interface class is the External
  API, an application programming interface that
  enables straightforward communication between
  ActionScript and the Flash Player container.

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Flash 8 External Interface

• Benefits
• More powerful and stable
• Extremely easy to implement
• Allows for synchronous communication
• Can send complex objects as arguments

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Flash 8 External Interface

• Supported within the following browsers
• Internet Explorer 5.0 (Windows)
• Netscape 8.0 (Windows Macintosh)
• Mozilla 1.7.5 (Windows Macintosh)
• Firefox 1.0 (Windows Macintosh)
• Safari 1.3 (Macintosh)

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Flash 8 External Interface

• Supports all primitive data types as well as
  complex objects as arguments.

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Flash 8 External Interface

• Live Examples
• Simplecart and External Interface (Flash 8)
• http//www.flash-db.com/Tutorials/simplecart/
• Fun with External Interface
• http//www.pasz.com/blog/2005/11/fun-with-external
  -interface.html

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Flash 8 External Interface

• Tutorial
• Danny Patterson has written (another) excellent
  tutorial about using the Flash 8 External
  Interface API. The tutorial is located at
• http//www.communitymx.com/content/article.cfm?cid
  0922Aprinttrue
• I have supplied a reprint of that article for you
  use.

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Presentation and Examples

• You can find this presentation and the some of
  the examples I used at my blog
• http//therush.mxdj.com