Two frameworks any Flash developer ‘should’ use!
Frameworks are an essential part of RIA developing. Over the past year I have learnt the essential frameworks for Flash websites. These frameworks have enabled me to build better sites, not only for myself, but for clients and the users that visit them.
The first framework im going to talk about is SWFObject.
Here’s a brief description from the dev’s site:
“SWFObject is a small Javascript file used for embedding Adobe Flash content. The script can detect the Flash plug-in in all major web browsers (on Mac and PC) and is designed to make embedding Flash movies as easy as possible. It is also very search engine friendly, degrades gracefully, can be used in valid HTML and XHTML 1.0 documents*, and is forward compatible, so it should work for years to come.” Source.
You can see from the description why it’s important to use this over the standard javascript Flash compiles for you in your published HTML page. What I find most usefull about this framework is the flashvars and expressInstall. A good example of using the flashvars within SWFObject would be from my dashboardX application.
I recommend watching Lee Brimelow’s tutorial on SWFObject.
So go ahead and download it!
The second framework is swfaddress.
“SWFAddress is a small, but powerful library that provides deep linking for Flash and Ajax. It’s a developer tool, allowing creation of unique virtual URLs that can point to a website section or an application state. SWFAddress enables a number of important capabilities which are missing in today’s rich web technologies including:”
- Bookmarking in a browser or social website
- Sending links via email or instant messenger
- Finding specific content with the major search engines
- Utilizing browser history and reload buttons
So you can see from the description that swfaddress can optimize your Flash content to make it SEO friendly, bookmark-able and more browser friendly.
I’ve only recently started to use swfaddress. I must admit its been a bit of a challenge implementing it with my Flash websites structures. Although now I’ve done it, I would never create another Flash website without it.
Here’s another great video tutorial from Lee Brimelow on swfaddress.
Go download it!
I must urge Flash developers to use these two frameworks. They were created by the Flash community to improve and extend the content that we love making. Now go ahead, learn them and use them!
Tags: Actionscript 3, deep linking, Flash, frameworks, javascript, swfaddress, SWFObject
