Tuesday, January 22, 2008

Create Slick Email Forms Using Flash



Just released, 2 Hour video lesson which teaches Actionscript 3 Flash Email Forms (with "Flash Cookies")

Watch Step by Step Instructions for Creating the Form shown on the sales page, with these key features....


- Locally Shared Objects (basically, Flash "cookies") are created to save the form for filling in later.
For example, fill in some of the fields in the sales page. Press TAB or "Save Form", then close the window and come back. Upon return the information filled in previously will appear. This is a good feature for lengthy forms that might extend over multiple swfs.

- Restrict input text to specific characters. Also error messages can prompt users about typing restricted text. You can test this out in the Order # field on the sales page. If you type letters instead of numbers, an error prompt will show up.

- Prior to submitting the form, required fields can be tested for accurate info. For example, if you exclude the @ symbol or a period in the Email field, the form will prompt you to enter a valid email address

- Learn to use four common Components: Checkboxes, Label Buttons, Pulldown Menus, and Scrollbars. Also these components can workhttp://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gif together, for example certain pulldown menu's will switch the checkbox to being selected.

- Scripted Motion Tweens can be added to make user messages slide in instead of appearing abruptly. You can test this out in the Order # field. If you type letters instead of numbers, an error prompt will slide / fade in.

- Input and Dynamic Text boxes are taught extensively.
- The PHP file to send the form is also included and can be modified as well

To grab this video tutorial on

Flash Based RSS Reader or XML Parser



Learn How to Use XML to Create a Flash Based RSS Reader - PLUS this tutorial includes a short lesson on exporting the RSS reader to Adobe AIR*!!

So how's this work... The Flash file will parse the RSS/XML files and use your own custom "shells" for displaying the information. You can populate the reader with your own RSS feeds are thousands more from other sites! If you aren't familiar with RSS, it stands for Really Simple Syndication, and in basic terms and RSS reader will display a site's new articles and provides quick ways of reading them without visiting the actual site itself.

The tutorial also teaches how to make the Flash reader display HTML tags, for example the reader (on the sale page) displays pictures because the source feed (Yahoo) includes image tags.

Example Flash files are provided for three readers (essentially templates), but the design possibilities are limitless. You choose how it can look to fit your site's branding.

*This Tutorial also includes a separate movie file which describes how to update your version of Flash CS3 for creating an Adobe AIR application. Ultimately this same RSS reader (or any of your previous Flash files) can be published as an installable application for your desktop

Check out the full example for this RSS Flash Tutorial here.