The new API is easy to implement and tremendously powerful. In this article I will
demonstrate just how easy it is to integrate into your projects. View working example.
Download Source Files
The External Interface API is supported by the following platforms and
browsers:
In this example, we are going to use Javascript to load images into a Flash
movie as they are selected from an HTML form.
The Flash Movie
1. Open Flash 8 and create a new movie named image_ei.fla.
2. Drag a loader component onto the stage and name it loader.
3. Select the first frame and add the following code:
This code performs the following task:
a. import the classes needed to use the External Interface API
create a function that you can reference in the Javascript
that we will add to our HTML page
b. We will use the addCallBack method of the External Interface API
to trigger an action in our Flash movie once the HTML form is submitted
4. Publish your movie as a swf and HTML - we sill modify the HTML page next
The HTML Page
1. Open your page and add the following Javascript code in the header
There are two Javascript functions here. The first is used to get the name
of you embedded flash movie. If you look at the name and id attributes of
your Flash Movie, you will see the name - image_ei.
The next function - makeCall - calls the loadImage function we created inside
our Flash movie and passes in one argument; the value from our form that we
will create now.
2. In the body of your document add the following code:
This is the form that triggers our makeCall function and passes the value
of the select box to our Flash movie resulting in an image loading into our loader
component. Notice that the action attribute for this form calls our Javascript function
makeCall.
3. Save your file and upload it to your server for testing.
View working example.
If you test this example on your local machine, you may get a security warning that
your swf is trying to communicate with your web page. This is eliminated if you run the page
on a web server.