External Interface

Summary

So where do you go from here? What else can you do with the ExternalInterface class in Flash? Well, realistically, the power doesn’t lie with ExternalInterface, but rather what you do with it. Your imagination and your knowledge of JavaScript (or whatever host application you choose to use) is your only limit. As the previous example has shown, you can use Flash for a task that isn’t even visual! The ideas are endless. You could

• Create a page that talks when certain titles and links are rolled over.

• Embed a Flash movie that loads and displays JPEG images when the JPEG images are chosen from an HTML drop-down box in the same page. This would allow you to generate your content dynamically with HTML, but make use of Flash to display and update the interactive part of the experience.

• Use an HTML configurator to allow users to build something dynamically (e.g., choosing toppings on a pizza), and use a Flash window to dynamically update price, total, or even generate a picture of what your pizza will look like.