So, I finally got round to having a look at the Data components in Macromedia Flash MX 2004. I decided that a good place to start would be to create a small application for browsing the RSS feed of this very site.
I quickly came across a sample application on the Macromedia site and took to deconstructing and re-assembling the code. Once I’d got my head round the concept of binding XML nodes (Is that the right terminology?) to fields or instances it quickly began to make sense.
Well, now that I have a better understanding of how I can use XML together with Flash maybe I can think about applying these skills to some future commercial projects.
Update: Anyone know how I can ‘format’ the excerpt field to render out links and HTML chars correctly??? I’m guessing I need to attach a stylesheet in some way…?
Update: I think I’ve sussed the HTML chars issue and have implimented some simple styling of “a” tags within the excerpt field. Neat. :)
Well, I just finished work on another CSS based site for a client. Pink Cow sell educational software for schools. They approached us here at Mirashade looking for a simple but flexible site which would provide them with the ability to administer key content (News, Features & Offers) through a Web based Content Management System.
We wrote the CMS using PHP and MySQL and developed the public facing site using CSS for positioning and styling. I think the end result is pretty neat. I’d be interested to hear your opinions on both the design and the execution…
I just put the finishing touches to a little budget site we’ve done here at Mirashade for a partner of ours. This particular job reminds me how enjoyable it is to work on smaller projects where you see the job through from start to finish in a matter of days.
Working on larger jobs which span months or even years, seems to sap creative energy. It gradually becomes harder and harder to remain enthused unless something is done to reguarly inject energy into the project.
I guess what I’m saying is that ‘budget’ jobs are under rated, more often that not this is where we get to have a little more fun and be a little more expressive.
Drew has been blogging about the fantastic feature in Textpattern which allows developers to quickly and easily write ‘plugins’ using standard PHP. Check out Drews post on the subject here.
