SmartWebby's Guide to Flash 'n' ASP Unleashed

Why Flash and ASP?

The answer to this question is pretty simple. Macromedia's Flash being a much hyped about media is gaining popularity fast due to its impressive interface and interactivity. This being irrespective of the fact that sometimes the loading time can be a put off (if the viewer has got a slow Internet connection or the flash movie is huge in size). If skillfully used the beauty of a flash interface and its quick interactive capabilities with minimal loading time can be easily achieved. Coming to Microsoft's ASP (Active Server Pages - a technology that provides a framework for building dynamic HTML pages which enable Internet and Intranet applications to be interactive). ASP is very much a front runner in the race for dynamic and database driven web sites. In relation to Flash, ASP can be used as a bridge between the database and the flash interface.

The potential of 'Flash and ASP' has not yet been fully realized and there are not many articles or guides on the web to help you through your quest to find out more. We hope our guide not only teaches you to work with this less explored area of web development but also challenges and initiates you into trying to build the product by yourself. We have also consciously included tips and guidelines for better loading speed and small file sizes.

What you need to know

For beginners you need to know at least the bare basics of either Flash or ASP. Hopefully we can help you with the rest. Books on ASP and Flash Action Scripting would come in handy if you get stuck. If you are a Flash designer wanting to explore the potential of Flash and ASP but are intimidated by the programming aspect of ASP then have no fear for we have endeavored to cover the simple ASP programming involved in depth. If you are a hard core ASP programmer with little knowledge of Flash then you can be assured that the Flash interface and its use can easily be learnt from the inbuilt tutorials of Flash. If you have generally a fair knowledge of both then this should be a piece of cake for you. Good Luck!

About the Guide

Both Flash and ASP are technologies that have hugely advanced. This tutorial thus comprehensively covers only the usage of Microsoft's ASP and Macromedia's Flash to bring about:

• Dynamic data display and manipulation i.e. interactivity into Flash
• Data transfer to the database from the user via the Flash interface
• Validation of fields in Flash forms using JavaScript and VB Script
• Setting of cookies on the client browser if desired
• Handling Flash & ASP files to make the application scalable and optimized for the web

We will be dealing with real time situations like display and functioning of forms. A Guest-Book is the simplest form of a web form. So to have a goal in mind, at the end of this tutorial you would have learnt how to step-by-step create a Flash 'n' ASP Guest-Book along with a load of other useful guidelines, tips and tricks too. Enjoy! :-)

Continue to Step 2: Basics of Flash and ASP

This tutorial covers the usage of ASP and Flash to bring about Flash dynamic data display and manipulation i.e. interactivity into Flash:

We would love to hear your comments and any suggestions on future tutorials we can add to this section. Thanks!