Question

form elements + loops + xml component?

Asked by: okcuser

I would like to create a restaurant menu in a Flash movie using xml.

Based on what the user selects from a drop down list (i.e. beef dishes, pork dishes, fish), I would like to display these menu items in a scrolling list from my xml file. Is this possible? How would I accomplish this?

Thanks,

Taco

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Asked On
2005-10-06 at 11:31:01ID21586350
Tags

flash

,

xml

,

form

Topics

Adobe Flash

,

Extensible HTML (XHTML)

Participating Experts
2
Points
500
Comments
7

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Answers

 

by: dutchfoxerPosted on 2005-10-06 at 18:00:07ID: 15035430

This is a big question... wow. A bit too general maybe. Look at the folowing and explain in more detail what you need.

Okay, you would need a XML-menu. You can look for tutorials on this and create one youreself in Flash. Learn how to read XML with Actionscript and then build it with your own XML.

Or you could go for "components". There are free flash components to make your life easier.
XML menu component, have a look because it looks cool: http://www.sephiroth.it/file_detail.php?id=118


Your dropdown list.... is it like a dropdown in HTML? Or it is just a way for an user to select an item? For a dropdown like in HTML you would use FLash's form UI components. And you select a Combobox. See explaination here:
http://www.macromedia.com/support/flash/applications/creating_forms/creating_forms06.html


If you have zero experience with Flash, then this could be a hard thing to do. Maybe find someone to help you with this. Or try and find something similar you could download!? A good resource site with lots of free flash-files: http://www.flashkit.com

 

by: okcuserPosted on 2005-10-07 at 10:49:46ID: 15040620

Ok...let me see if I can add more detail. I have a restaurant menu that my customer wishes to display on her webpage. The webpage has been created in Flash MX 2004. I would like each item from the menu to have a category (drop-down list) and a subcategory (drop-down list).

It goes like this...I would like the user to click a category (american, thai, chinese), which will populate the subcategory drop-down list (soups, appetizers, combination platters), which would then populate another drop-down list, with the names of the dishes in it.

When the user clicks a dish, I would like the corresponding information to populate some text boxes with a description and pricing. I would like all of this information to be contained in an xml file, so that I can update only the xml file when something changes.

Do you have any suggestions that do that?

Thanks,

Taco

 

by: blue-geniePosted on 2005-10-10 at 03:34:38ID: 15051198

there are a number of ways you can achieve this and it would all depend on
a) your skills level
b) how much effort you want to make,

in terms of the drop down menu - are you building something yourself - using some component?


i'm assuming you know how to return xml data to your flash .....

- what you can do is check for nodes in the xml and generate the drop down items accordingly (i.e createTextField) - that way when your chef decides to come up with new items, you're not rebuilding everything.

- then based on the selected item (you'll have to put that in your code - unless you're using something like the combobox) -return the selected item, pull the childNodes.value from the xml and put in whatever you're displaying it with


 

by: okcuserPosted on 2005-10-10 at 07:02:55ID: 15052266

bluegenie,

Thanks for the reply. I have built a flash application using the xml component, which populated a combo box and then changed the values of my form elements based on what was selected from the combo box, so I do have some experience. However, what I am wanting to do is a little more complex. I am willing to put the effort it takes into this project. Can you recommend a good tutorial for the method you suggest?

Thanks,

Taco

 

by: blue-geniePosted on 2005-10-10 at 07:06:24ID: 15052293

in what way is it more complex then that?

 

by: dutchfoxerPosted on 2005-10-10 at 07:45:50ID: 15052597


Oke you want to create a dynamic Flash-form. So when selecting an Item in the Combo box (drop downlist), another combo box needs to be populated with related items... correct?

How about this tutorial then:
http://www.flash-db.com/Board/index.php?board=19;action=display;threadid=1048


You will find mostly ColdFusion tutorials where the data comes from MS Access or another Database. This is also done mostly with PhP. But XML is about the same, but you would need to convert the XML file to different ARRAYS for easy programming.

Example code here:

<dataFromXML>
   <option data="1" label="One" />
   <option data="2" label="Two" />
   <option data="3" label="Three" />
   <option data="4" label="Four" />
   <option data="5" label="Five" />
   <option data="6" label="Six" />
   <option data="7" label="Seven" />
   <option data="8" label="Eight" />
   <option data="9" label="Nine" />
</dataFromXML>



And then here was the ActionScript i used to load in the external XML file and turn it into the dataProvider for my ComboBox instance:

var my_cb:mx.controls.ComboBox;
my_cb.addItem({label:"Loading..."});
my_cb.enabled = false;
var cb_xml:XML = new XML();
cb_xml.ignoreWhite = true;
cb_xml.onLoad = function(success:Boolean) {
   if (success) {
       my_cb.enabled = true;
       var dp:Array = new Array();
       my_cb.dataProvider = dp;
       for (var i = 0; i<cb_xml.firstChild.childNodes.length; i++) {
           var thisChild:XMLNode = cb_xml.firstChild.childNodes[i];
           dp.addItem({label:thisChild.attributes['label'], data:thisChild.attributes['data']});
       }
   }
};
cb_xml.load("combobox.xml");

 

by: okcuserPosted on 2005-10-10 at 15:37:36ID: 15056129

dutchfoxer...Thanks!...This looks like what I needed...I'll give this a shot and get back with you...

Taco

20120131-EE-VQP-002

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