XML running a Flash Design ( on a buget )

Last year I programmed the flash and templates for proscenium.ca. The design came from the Print world and required things like anti alias fonts and custom fonts… things only achievable with Flash. The budget was small, however Proscenium had Jordan on staff who was a Jr. web developer, someone I could train easily.

What to do?

Generate a simple XML structure with 3 Dreamweaver template files and 6 .swf files, deliver those to the developer with simple instructions.

How could that be so simple?

well my menus and content in the Flash is all programmed on the fly, and they are all pulling in the same .xml file. Every page’s flash content is put into it’s proper place in the XML, along with a full URL for the page. The url has to match exactly for Flash to know which information to use. The large version of the images are on javascript pop-up windows, generated from flash to pass the variables forward.

All that Jordan had to do was populate the XML file, and generate the .HTML pages from the Dreamweaver templates and make the images the right sizes. The client was very happy with the job.

If you read up a little on XML and Actionscript, you too could make an advanced Flash and XML template.

I did this job along side Digitopolis Media Corp.