How to create html page dynamically from flash?

Question

Hi I have a flash movie with a button to 'view items in new browser window.'

These items are all dynamically generated in flash. So the html has to be dynamically generated as well.

Can any sugest a way to do this? Do I need to use php or some server side script?

Answer 1

It's probably a bad practice to generate it all from within flash. I reckon the most common solution would be to pass only the generated data to a server script or js method that replicates the way items shows up in flash but in HTML for instance.

Answer 2

if you mean "in new browser window." , then all you need to do is something like

navigateToURL(new URLRequest("http://www.yoursite.com/somePage.php?content=hi_there"), "_blank");

where the http://www.yoursite.com/somePage.php contains dynamically generated content from the querystring ( say... retrieve the content "hi there" from the example above) using PHP/server side script

if you mean "html content generated INSIDE flash", then you can use FlashML http://osflash.org/flashml (seems to be actionscript 2 tho )

if you mean "html like content in Flash", then you can write script to form your own content inside flash, like dynamically putting movieclips together to make it like a html page

Answer 3

Use a hybrid of Javascript AND Flash. So Flash triggers the function for the Javascript to do the DOM/HTML manipulation.

In flash you will call the External library to pass some essential parameters to the JS.

it goes like this in AS3:

import flash.external.*;
...
ExternalInterface.call("JavascriptFunctionName", escape(param1), escape(param2));

In JavaScript:

JavascriptFunctionName = function(_param1, _param2){
 CreateHTMLElement(unescape(_param1));
 CreateMenuItem(unescape(_param2));
}

If you are passing a lot of data, I'd suggest using a php proxy/webservice.