CGI Forms With Flash MX and UI Components Set #2

CGI Form with Flash MX and UI Components Set #2

There are several tutorials around using CGI with previous versions of Flash, but MX has added some new features that simplify this a little. Macromedia has also issued a second set of components which I have used in this tutorial, as this set contains a "Message Box" component that I found interesting.

You'll need to download the new version 1.4 of MM's extension manager to install the new components in MX. The extension manager and the UI set #2 can both be downloaded here. You might note that this set has a rather low rating (3/5) which is due to it's almost total lack of documentation. Most of what I have here concerning the components I had to figure out for myself, so I can't guarantee that there aren't better ways to do this, but lacking documentation I couldn't find them. Maybe as more of us get our feet wet, the pool of knowledge will be extended. Or who knows? Maybe Macromedia will get around to issuing some documentation in the form of tech notes or their own tutes.

However, the installation for me went without a hitch, installing the components in the panel as it's own group accessible by the small "drop-down" arrow in the upper right corner of the Actions panel. You may note some other nifty components there, but I'll only be using the message box and push buttons in this tutorial.

What slim documentation there is installs in the "reference" area of the "Actions" panel. Highlighting an item, and then clicking the "Reference" icon on the Actions panel will open the "Reference" panel, which contains some sparse notes on each item. This same information can also be accessed through Window->Component Help-UI set 2. It apparently does not install any documentation into the Action Script Dictionary.

Ok. Now that you have the new components installed, we're ready to get into building our form.