Creating dynamic charts from an external file - Page 4

Connecting to the data file

Now that the movie is set up, it's time to talk to the data file!

Create a third layer called Actions and enter the following on the first frame:

//load the text file

var loading = new loadVars();

loading.load("text.asp");

Replace the filename text.asp with the name of your file. When you reference the variables from the file, you'll need to refer to them using:

loading.variablename

You need to make sure that the data file has been loaded before you can start working with the variables. Add the following code on frame two of the actions layer to test whether the file is loaded.

loading.onLoad = function() {

   if (loading.End == 1) {

      gotoAndPlay("end");

   }

   else {

      gotoAndPlay("start")	

   }

}

When the End variable has a value of 1, the whole file has been loaded. If the file is loaded, we move to the end frame with the chart.

Place a stop action on frame three.

trace(loading.ChartValues);