Been doing quite a bit of Flash development lately. I just published a site for a local Church leader, using mostly Flash for navigation and for content.

I would have already connected all the content via External files or data, but thus far, Flash seems to be quirky or particular in the way that one uses the Dynamic Text feature (there seems to be a particular order required to keep font sizes and such standard.

If one creates a text object of size A, and then sets that text’s properties to “Dynamic” from “Static”, and then do another text box with dynamic properties, but the text object is of different dimensions, then the text is of a different look in both…..even though they may have the identical font, size, and boldness/italic/etc.

Another feature, related to this, is that the text files I am using for dynamic text (this is in another project) are files written by the TextStream Object in ASP, so that when an update is done in the database for the site content text, the appropriate text file is updated. I did this because of the absence of an alternative in Flash for binding to data which would not require me to learn new things and take me weeks to master…… I wish Flash had a “DataBinding” that utilized the kinds of data connectivity objects that ASP or ColdFusion do: the direct connection to databases using ADO and such things. My Dreamweaver projects using ASP are easy to write, and I would love to be able to do the same drag and drop of dynamic data into table rows, and plop down those data navigation behaviors.

Flash requires that I know XML or .Net in order for me to do these things, and even then, the object/behavior support is probably not as extensive as it is for ASP and ADO n Dreamweaver MX 2004. I am not sure what the barriers are to this