Step Outside the Box – Part I

Theo Rushin Jr

I am an avid snowboarder and skier always looking for the deep powder. When I’m 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@mail.nih.gov or on the snow

What is Web 2.0

New Version of the Web?

New Web Technologies?

New Hacker Movie Starring Keanu Reeves?

Words and Phrases that Describe Web 2.0

• Standards based

• Social Bookmarking

• AJAX

• RSS

• Web Services

• Tags

“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

From Web 2.0 Conference

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

From Wikipedia

“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 we’re looking to a new set of tools to aggregate and remix microcontent in new and useful ways.”

- Richard MacManus

From Web 2.0 for Designers

“the web as a platform”

- Mike Chambers

“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

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.

Flash JavaScript Integration Kit

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

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

Flash JavaScript Integration Kit

Supports the following data types:

– Object– Array– String– Number– Boolean– Date– null– undefined

Flash JavaScript Integration Kit

Project Sources:

OSFlash– http://osflash.org/doku.php?id=flashjs

Flash / JavaScript Integration Kit (Beta) – http://weblogs.macromedia.com/flashjavascript/

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/ExtendingAJAX/

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=D7491&print=true

I have supplied a reprint of that article for you use.

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.”

Flash 8 External Interface

Benefits:

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

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)

Flash 8 External Interface

Supports all primitive data types as well as complex objects as

arguments.

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

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=0922A&print=true

I have supplied a reprint of that article for you use.

Presentation and Examples

You can find this presentation and the some of the examples I used at my blog;

http://therush.mxdj.com