Whats New

ADOBE FLASH CS3 PROFESSIONAL CREATE AND DELIVER RICH, INTERACTIVE CONTENT
With a new streamlined user interface, time-saving design and development tools, and impressive integration with Adobe Photoshop CS3 and Adobe Illustrator CS3, Flash CS3 Professional ensures a fast, fluid, and efficient workflow.
All-new Adobe Flash CS3 Professional software is the most advanced authoring environment for rich, interactive content creation. Whether creating interactive websites, rich media advertisements, instructional media, engaging presentations, online games, or content for mobile devices, designers and developers worldwide depend on Flash to ensure that their content reaches the widest audience. Available for Microsoft Windows and as a universal-binary application for Mac, Flash CS3 provides the tools you need to be successful. Flash CS3 Professional is an integral part of Adobe Creative Suite 3, which empowers creative professionals and developers to experience an uninterrupted flow of energy and ideas from initial concept to polished final execution across print, video, web, and mobile devices. The end-to-end integration is the core of what makes Creative Suite uniquely powerfulso you can remain focused on your vision and achieve the highest quality results in less time. With Adobe Flash CS3 Professional, you can: Experience creative flexibilityFlash CS3 features a full set of creative drawing, animation, and interactive tools offering greater productivity and flexibility to explore multiple design options. New Shape Primitives and a new Pen toolone that functions like that found in Adobe Illustratorallow for precise control over your artwork. Work in a productive development environmentRich time-saving programming tools like code collapse and a new advanced debugger all make for a productive development environment. Flash CS3 also features the ability to quickly convert timeline-based animations to ActionScript 3.0, making it easy to understand the structured and intuitive scripting language that enables efficient and consistent content development. Benefit from intelligent integrationFlash CS3 sports a new user interface that is consistent with other Adobe design software. The ability to import native Photoshop and Illustrator content while preserving important structural data such as layers, editable text, and symbols makes completing projects much more fluid and efficient. And new Adobe Device Central CS3 makes it easier to develop content for mobile devices.

Introduction

Adobe Flash CS3 Professional is also available as a component of:
Adobe Creative Suite 3 Web Premium Adobe Creative Suite 3 Web Standard Adobe Creative Suite 3 Design Premium Adobe Creative Suite 3 Production Premium Adobe Creative Suite 3 Master Collection
Take advantage of Emmy Awardwinning Flash Video technology and the ubiquitous Adobe Flash Player to deliver interactive content.
Flash CS3 Professional Whats New

Top ten features

Native Photoshop and Illustrator import (Page 2) Convert animation to ActionScript 3.0 (Page 3) Common Adobe Creative Suite 3 user interface (Page 4) ActionScript 3.0 development with advanced debugger (Page 5) Adobe Device Central (Page 5) New drawing tools (Page 6) New optimized and easily skinned UI components for ActionScript 3.0 (Page 7) Advanced QuickTime export (Page 7) Sophisticated video encoding (Page 7) Time-saving programming tools (Page 8)
Adobe Flash CS3 Professional features powerful new functionality that makes it even more enjoyable to create truly engaging interactive content. Advanced design and animation tools provide greater flexibility to express your most creative ideas, new ActionScript programming features make for an even more productive development environment, and impressive integration with other Adobe design and development software improves productivity. The following is a detailed overview of the top new features in Adobe Flash CS3 Professional.

Top new features of Adobe Flash CS3 Professional
Native Photoshop and Illustrator import
As an integral part of Adobe Creative Suite 3 software, Flash CS3 offers impressive integration with Photoshop and Illustrator. Designers and developers are now free to use the applications they feel most comfortable with, yet still be able to work within the powerful design and development environment of Flashwithout sacrifice. If youre trying to quickly import content, a new Paste dialog box makes it possible to preserve functionality and structure when simply copying and pasting from Photoshop or Illustrator into Flash. For an even higher level of functionality, you can import native Photoshop (PSD) and Illustrator (AI) files directly into your Flash CS3 layouts. In doing so, youll find that you have an incredible amount of control over your content. Essential integration with Photoshop CS3 Upon importing a PSD file into Flash, a dialog box appears, revealing the entire layer hierarchy of the Photoshop file. You then have the ability to choose which layers you want to import, and can also choose from a variety of settings for each individual layer. For example, you can retain Photoshop text as editable text in Flash, convert Photoshop layers or layer groups to movie clips, and even specify publish settings. Flash can set the stage size of your project to match the canvas size of the Photoshop file, and can also ensure that layer content appears in position.
For each individual layer in the Photoshop file, choose how Flash should preserve the information.
View the entire hierarchy of the Photoshop file, and choose which layers to import and which ones to ignore.
Convert Photoshop layers to either Flash layers or Flash keyframes.
Powerful integration with Illustrator CS3 Upon importing a native Illustrator file, a dialog box displays a listing of all layers, groups, and even objects. For each of these, you have complete control over which are imported, and over the settings determining how each object is brought into your Flash document. You can import Illustrator layers as separate Flash layers, keyframes, or single Flash layers, and objects in the Flash Library panel are organized in folders that mirror the structure in Illustrator.
Flash CS3 offers objectlevel control when importing native Illustrator files. You can also create movie clips from any object with the click of a button. Icons to the right of each object in the list indicate the content type.
While both Illustrator and Flash are vector-graphics applications, their drawing models have displayed their differences in the past, resulting in less than desirable results when moving content between the applications. Flash CS3 maintains a much higher level of object fidelity than did previous versions. This means that Illustrator objectsand textbrought into Flash now look just like they did in Illustrator. Improvements include the following: Illustrator live effects such as Drop Shadow, Outer Glow, Inner Glow, and Gaussian Blur are preserved as editable filters, which you can then update in Flash. Illustrator gradient fills retain their fidelity and are editable in Flash. Flash now features improved conversion of RGB colors. Flash includes support for vertical text, text styles, justified text, and text blocks with multiple lines of text. Flash now uses the same underlying path structure as does Illustrator, preserving the number and position of Bzier control points. Illustrator clipping masks for multiple objects are correctly imported into Flash. Illustrator symbols are now preserved as Flash symbols. Flash preserves object opacity at the original values specified in Illustrator, and also preserves the Darken, Multiply, Lighten, Screen, Overlay, Hard Light, and Difference transparency blending modes. Illustrator pattern strokes and fills are preserved in Flash.

Convert animation to ActionScript 3.0
Developing efficient and lightweight Flash content is key in todays fast-paced I need it now world. For many designs, using ActionScript to define movement of stage elements allows for greater flexibility and control. And while designers and developers are aware of this capability, the process of writing the necessary code can be complex and time-consuming. In Flash CS3, timeline tween animations can now be instantly converted to ActionScript 3.0. This allows you to animate visually, and then translate motion into reusable, easilyeditable code. Simply select an animation tween on the timeline, and choose Edit > Timeline > Copy As ActionScript 3.0. After applying an instance name, you can then paste the code into the Actions panel for an appropriate frame. Even if youve never used ActionScript before, this feature offers the perfect way to learn it. This new time-saving functionality supports position, scale, rotation, skew, color, easing, transform center, filters, and frame properties.
Coding ActionScript 3.0 animations is now as simple as copy and paste.
Common Adobe Creative Suite 3 user interface
Enjoy a common user interface when working with software from the Creative Suite 3 family. Similar tools, familiar icons, and customizable workspaces enable you to move smoothly between Flash and other Adobe design software. Flash CS3 has a new, elegantly redesigned interface featuring workspace panels that dock and group for optimal organization while eliminating overlapping palettes and windows. Save custom workspaces, and leverage your knowledge of the similar tools, panels, and keyboard shortcuts used in other Adobe software. In fact, this unified user interface is now consistent across Flash, Photoshop, Illustrator, Adobe InDesign Adobe After Effects , , Adobe Premiere Pro, Adobe Soundbooth and Adobe Encore ,.
Flash CS3 sports a newly designed user interface consistent with that found in other Adobe Creative Suite 3 componentseasy to read and adjust to your liking. Panels can also be reduced to a new iconic view and slide open as you need them, leaving more room to see your document.
In addition to a more universal appearance, Flash CS3 also offers additional Creative Suite 3 integration functionality: Adobe Bridge CS3 can be launched from the File > Browse menu, and assets can be dragged directly from Bridge into Flash as well. Flash CS3 also adds ExtendScript and BridgeTalk support for cross-application scripting. You can import native Fireworks CS3 files directly into Flash CS3, adding support for multiple pages (both common master-page and shared layers components), hierarchical layers, library items, and improved frames. Manage and track versions of your files with Version Cue CS3. A component of the Web and Design editions of Creative Suite 3, Version Cue server enables workgroup functionality such as file control and browser-based PDF reviews.

ActionScript 3.0 development with advanced debugger
Flash CS3 brings an entire new level of efficiency to development with ActionScript 3.0. A broad language that is accessible to beginners, while offering professionals a powerful programming environment, ActionScript 3.0 scales easily to meet your expectations. In fact, ActionScript 3.0 is easier to use than you would expect. And because ActionScript is based on universal programming concepts, learning to use it will set you up to successfully expand into using additional programming languages as your skills grow. Test your content using a brand new ActionScript debugger that allows you to step through a wide variety of properties in your code at runtime, with greater flexibility and feedback than ever before. The new debugger is shared with Adobe Flex Builder 2, so developers can expect consistent feedback and behavior when switching between the two applications. Rather than being confined to a single panel, the new debugger comprises a collection of panels in a Debug Mode workspace that makes it easier to move through your debug tasks. When you enter Debug Mode, Flash brings up the workspace and loads the SWF file in a standalone player.
The Debug Console panel is the main controller for the ActionScript 3.0 debugger. It is used to resume and stop debugging, as well as step in, out, and over. The lower portion of the panel is a tree representing the call stack. To navigate to a particular position in the stack, click an item in the stack.
The Variables panel displays the value of variables within the scope of the current location. Object expressions are displayed as trees, so you can drill down and see specific properties/members. Simple expressions are paired with an editable value field. The Output panel displays debugger notifications and trace statements from the SWF file.

Adobe Device Central

Integrated with Flash CS3 as well as throughout the various editions of Creative Suite 3, Adobe Device Central simplifies the creation of mobile content with mobile device skins and regularly updated device profiles. Now you can easily design, preview, and test engaging mobile content, such as interactive Flash Lite applications and rich user interfaces. Adobe Device Central displays realistic skins that show you what devices look like, and how your content is displayed on those devices. You can interact with the emulated devices in a way that simulates real-world interactions, and you can control emulation options that let you create a range of testing scenarios. Adobe Device Central provides a library of devices to choose from, each with a profile that contains information about the device and the content types it supports. You can search through available devices, compare multiple devices, and create custom sets of the devices you use most.

Adobe Device Central is a new component that lets you emulate content created in Flash on a wide range of mobile devices.
But dont mistake Adobe Device Central for nothing more than a simple utility that displays your Flash content on a picture of a cell phone. Besides the ability to quickly access essential technical specifications for each device, Adobe Device Central will also emulate the performance of your file when displayed on a mobile device, giving you an accurate feel for the total experience of your content. In fact, Adobe Device Central is powerful enough to also provide real-time feedback on other important real-world scenarios, like low-battery situations and even incoming calls. The ability to also emulate device memory, and to simulate backlit screens and bright outdoor situations means that Adobe Device Central will give you confidence that youve developed the best-looking content for all circumstances.

New drawing tools

Over the years, professional designers have come to appreciate the power and precision of the vector drawing tools found in Adobe Illustrator, the industry-standard for vector graphics creation. Now, you can expect that same level of precise control in Flash CS3 using the new Pen tool, which looks and behaves like the one found in Adobe Illustrator. Manipulate Bzier control points using the familiar Adobe Illustrator keyboard shortcuts and modifiers. Even copy and paste or drag and drop artwork from Illustrator into Flash, preserving full fidelity.
Look familiar? The pen tools in Flash now closely match the functionality of those found in Illustrator. They even use the same keyboard shortcuts, cursors, and modifier keys.
In addition, you can now visually adjust shape properties from the stage using new Shape Primitives. Draw and manipulate rectangles and ovalseasily round rectangle corners, create pie wedges, define an inner circle radius, and more. Flash CS3 also helps you work with the objects you create. When youre using the innovative 9-slice scaling feature that intelligently scales objects, preventing distortion, the effect is now rendered on stage for immediate review.
New optimized and easily skinned UI components for ActionScript 3.0
With Flash CS3, you can design interactive content using a new lightweight, easy-to-skin set of user interface components. ActionScript 3.0 is so easy to customize, you no longer have to write code to modify the look of interface components. Save precious time by developing your content using a variety of pre-built components written in ActionScript 3.0 simply by pulling content from a library. Once youve started using these components, you can easily re-skin them to match the exact look and feel of your project. These components are built to perform faster than ever before and are easier for advanced developers to extend. A new ActionScript 3.0 closed captioning video component now makes it easy to include closed captioning for your video content. Combine this with the new component skins, and you have a seamless workflow for displaying closed captions using a standards-based caption format.

Advanced QuickTime export
Flash CS3 introduces an advanced QuickTime export feature that captures exactly what Adobe Flash Player plays back. That means complex nested symbols and all ActionScript will export exactly as you would have seen and heard them in Flash Player. Export QuickTime files that include nested Movie Clips, ActionScript-generated content, and run-time effects such as drop shadow and blur. The ability to generate an alpha channel, combined with a new Publish option that can ignore hidden Layers upon export, allows for entirely new workflows between Flash and video editing tools such as Adobe Premiere Pro and After Effects.
Sophisticated video encoding
Flash CS3 Professional features new encoding options such as deinterlacing, advanced cue point control, and a larger selection of video component skins to provide you with more control over the appearance of your video.
A larger preview, support for cue points, and custom encoding profiles are just a few of the new features that allow you to easily incorporate video content into your Flash projects.
Adobe Flash CS3 Professional is compatible with version 9 of Adobe Flash Player software.
The Flash Video Encoder is a standalone application that lets you encode video in Flash video (FLV) format. Redesigned for Flash CS3, the new encoder is now more powerful and easier to use than ever before. New Flash Video Encoder features include a much larger preview window, a new Crop And Resize tab with trim options, and a longer scrub bar, making it easier to locate specific frames in which to place cue points. You can import cue points saved in an XML file, and can also export cue points that you define in the Flash Video Encoder. Encoding options are immediately visible without having to click Show Advanced Settings; you can also choose to deinterlace video during encoding, for improved broadcast and DV footage quality. Finally, you can save, import, and export custom Flash Video encoding profiles.
Time-saving programming tools
Reduce the time needed to write ActionScript with the following new code editor enhancements: The Actions panel and Script window now include tools for collapsing selected code to temporarily hide it from view. Tools to comment whole sections of selected code have been added to the Script window. AutoFormat ensures proper ActionScript 3.0 coding syntax and improved readability. Flash now uses the same ActionScript 3.0 compiler as Flex Builder. Script Assist mode can now be used with ActionScript 3.0. ActionScript 3.0 introduces the new concept of a document classa class definition associated with the main timeline. When the main timeline is initialized, the class is constructed. You can specify a class name for a library symbol, which can then be directly instantiated dynamically to create instances of that symbol, making linkage identifiers unnecessary. You can specify a base-class name for library symbols. You can now double-click an error in the Compiler Errors panel to go to the relevant code in the Actions panel or Script window. The JSFL SpiderMonkey engine has been updated to 1.6 and many new JavaScript APIs have been added for enhanced extensibility. In the United States and Canada, Adobe Flash CS3 Professional for Mac OS X on Intel-based or PowerPC-based systems and for Windows XP and Windows Vista is expected to ship in the second quarter of 2007. Adobe Flash CS3 Professional will be available in North America starting in Qfor an estimated street price of US$699, directly from Adobe or through Adobe Authorized Resellers. To order directly from Adobe, visit the Adobe Store at www.adobe.com, or call 1-888-724-4507. Licensed owners of Flash Professional 8, Flash MX 2004, or Flash MX can upgrade to Adobe Flash CS3 Professional for US$199. Licensed owners of Flash Professional 8, Flash MX 2004, or Flash MX are also eligible for special upgrade pricing to many editions of Adobe Creative Suite 3. A complete description of upgrade eligibility and pricing is available in the Pricing Overview document. Estimated street prices do not include taxes, shipping, handling, or other related expenses. Information on pricing and support policies outside of North America and for Education customers will be available separately. Different pricing may apply for Education customers and in other geographical regions. Adobe revolutionizes how the world engages with ideas and informationanytime, anywhere and through any medium. For more information, visit www.adobe.com.

Availability and pricing

See the following for more details about Adobe Creative Suite 3 software:
Adobe Creative Suite 3 Web Premium Whats New Adobe Creative Suite 3 Design Premium Whats New Adobe Creative Suite 3 Production Premium Whats New
About Adobe Systems Incorporated

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Adobe, the Adobe logo, ActionScript, Adobe Premiere, Acrobat, After Effects, Builder, Creative Suite, Encore, Fireworks, Flash, Flash Lite, Flex, InDesign, Illustrator, Photoshop, Soundbooth, Version Cue, and Better by Adobe are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Adobe Systems Incorporated in the United States and/or other countries. Mac, Mac OS, and Macintosh are trademarks of Apple Computer, Inc., registered in the United States and other countries. QuickTime is a trademark used under license. Intel and Pentium are trademarks or registered trademarks of Intel Corporation or its subsidiaries in the United States and other countries. PowerPC is a trademark of International Business Machines Corporation in the United States, other countries, or both. Microsoft and Windows are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and/or other countries. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. 2007 Adobe Systems Incorporated. All rights reserved. Printed in the USA. 01/04/07 Flash CS3 Professional Whats New

Bind the DataSets dataProvider property to the DataGrids dataProvider property: click the plus (+) sign, select the dataProvider:Array property, click Bound To, click the magnifying glass icon, select DataGrid, then select the dataProvider:Array property. Select out for the direction. Bind the DataSets selectedIndex property to the DataGrids selectedIndex property: click the plus (+) sign, select the selectedIndex:Number property, click Bound To, click the magnifying glass icon, select DataGrid, then select the selectedIndex:Number property.

10. Set up

the button to load data into the data grid. Click layer 1 in frame 1 of the Timeline and open the Actions panel. Add the following code to the first frame:
form = new Object(); form.click = function(eventObj){ xmlConn.trigger(); } loadData.addEventListener("click", form);
Save and test the application. Click Load Data. The data from the XML file is loaded into the DataGrid.
You've just created your first data integration application, with data dynamically loaded from an XML file. To add more functionality to this application, see Creating an indexed binding on page 406.
Workflows for using the data components
This section provides a high-level overview of the steps required to create a Flash application that can dynamically interact with an external data source. You can find instructions and examples to complete each step throughout the rest of the article. There are two general workflows: one for connecting to web services or XML documents as your data source, and one for connecting to an external database.
Workflow for data source from web services or XML documents:
Get the URL of your external data source:
A web service. An XML document. Add a connector component. Add a DataSet component, which you will bind to your data source and UI components. Add UI components that will display data to users, such as a DataGrid component. Add a resolver component. Set component parameters. Set component properties on the Schema tab.
Add components to the Stage:
Set up the connector component:
Bind the connector component to DataSet component. Set up the DataSet component:
Set component parameters. Set component properties on the Schema tab.
Bind the UI component to the DataSet component. Set up the resolver component:

A simple binding example

The following procedure provides a simple illustration of how data binding connects one UI component to another. In the example, the value properties of component instances stepper1_nm and stepper2_nm are bound to each other, and the value properties of stepper3_nm and myInput_txt are bound to each other. In a real-world application, you would most likely import a schema, define additional bindable component properties, and create multiple bindings between data components and UI components.
To connect UI components to create data binding:

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.

Add a NumericStepper component to the Stage, and name it stepper1_nm. Add another NumericStepper component, and name it stepper2_nm. With stepper1_nm selected, open the Component inspector, and click the Bindings tab. Click the Add Binding (+) button to add a binding. In the Add Binding dialog box, select Value, and click OK. In the Name/Value section at the bottom of the Bindings tab, click the Bound To item under Name, and click the magnifying glass icon across from the Bound To item under Value. In the Bound To dialog box, select component stepper2_nm under Component Path, and click OK.
Select Control > Test Movie. Click the Up and Down buttons on component stepper1_nm. Each time you click the buttons on stepper1_nm, the value property of stepper1_nm is copied to the value property of stepper2_nm. Each time you click the buttons on stepper2_nm, the value property of stepper2_nm is copied to the value property of stepper1_nm.
Return to editing the application. another NumericStepper component and name it stepper3_nm. steps 4-7 and bind the value property of stepper3_nm to the text property of Add a TextInput component called myInput_txt.

myInput_txt.

10. Add 11.

12. Repeat

Select Control > Test Movie. Type a number in the text input field, and press Tab. Each time you enter a new value, the text property of myInput_txt is copied to the value property of stepper3_nm. When you click the Up and Down buttons on stepper3_nm, the value property of stepper3_nm is copied to the text property of myInput_txt.
For more tutorials that show you how to create data bindings, see www.adobe.com/go/ learn_fl_data_integration.
Working with schemas in the Schema tab
The Schema tab in the Component inspector lets you view and edit the schema for each datarelated component in your application. The Schema tab lists the components bindable properties, which are properties to which you can bind that commonly contain dynamic data. All components have properties, but by default, to reduce UI clutter, the Schema tab shows only properties that commonly contain dynamic data. (You can, however, bind to any property by either adding it to the Schema tab or using ActionScript code. For more information, see Working with bindings in the Bindings tab on page 402.) The Schema tab also lists properties data types, their internal structure, and various special attributes. The data binding engine needs this information for each component to handle your data correctly.

Adding a component property to a schema
You typically add component properties to a schema for the following reasons:
To make an existing component property bindable. You can make any component property bindable if you add it to the schema. To define the fields of a DataSet component to describe expected data fields. Most commonly, you need to define the data type for an expected field, but there are numerous other properties you can set. For more information, see the examples in Accessing the data on page 423 and This section discusses advanced topics, such as refinements you make to schema settings and information for developers who need to write server-side code to interact with Flash data applications.Schema item settings on page 430.
The following example illustrates how you make an existing component property bindable by adding the component property to the components schema. In the example, you create an application that uses a CheckBox component to indicate whether a TextInput component is editable. Because the TextInput components schema does not initially contain the editable property, you add the editable property to the schema to bind it to the CheckBox component.
To add a component property to a schema to make the property bindable:
Add a TextInput component and a CheckBox component to your application, and give them instance names. Select the TextInput component, and click the Schema tab on the Component inspector. Click the Add a Component Property (+) button at the upper left of the Schema tab to add a component property. In the Schema Attributes pane (the bottom pane of the Schema tab), enter editable for the field name value and select Boolean for the data type value. Click the Bindings tab, and click the Add Binding (+) button to add a binding. In the Add Binding dialog box, select the editable property, and click OK. In the Binding Attributes pane at the bottom of the Bindings tab, click the Bound To item under Name, and click the magnifying glass icon across from the Bound To item under Value. In the Bound To dialog box, select the CheckBox component under Component Path, and click OK. Select the Checkbox component on the Stage, and click the Parameters tab in the Component inspector. Control > Test Movie. To test the functionality, type a value into the TextInput component and then deselect the CheckBox component. You should now be unable to enter text into the TextInput component.

About data connectivity and security in Flash Player
Many developers are interested in using an industry standard such as SOAP web services as the data-exchange mechanism between their client and server. One reason this approach is gaining favor is the increasing number of popular servers that support exposure of logic using SOAP. There may be cases where you want the client software to use web services that are published by third parties or hosted on servers that fall outside the Flash Player sandbox. Access to external data through any connector component is subject to the sandbox security model in Flash Player, for all Flash applications that run in a web browser. The sandbox security model restricts a Flash document from accessing data from any domain other than the one in which it originated (this includes public web services). There are a couple of ways to accomplish what you want to do, while still preserving the user security and privacy that the Flash Player sandbox provides:
Create a policy file that is hosted on the server containing the web service to be used. For more information, see Server-side policy files for permitting access to data in Learning ActionScript 2.0 in Flash and the security tech note 14213 at www.adobe.com/go/ tn_14213.
Create an intermediary object that resides on the server to act as a bridge between your client and the public services you want to use. This approach offers several advantages:
Public web services can be aggregated. With this approach you can provide fail-over safety and load balancing when a request is made for data. You can control the flow of data in your application. If the web service goes away or the URL is down, you can decide how to respond. Data can be optimized. Multiple requests can be cached. You can have custom error handling. You can determine what errors to send back to the client. Data can be manipulated, converted, or combined. You can pull data from several sources and return one data packet with the combined information.
Many of the SOAP-based applications that you build will use private web services hosted on your server. After you determine the best way to implement and expose your own web services, it is easy to make public web services available to your client application. When you are in control of the server, you can offer a complete solution. The server is the ideal place for business logic that can determine the best way to respond to requests for data and the results that should be sent back to the client. This is also the most secure way to build an application. The server can provide additional processing to make sure that users have access only to certain services as well as protect the client from making calls to malicious services that can return bad data. For more information, see the Adobe Developer Center article Getting a Handle on Web Services at www.adobe.com/go/learn_fl_webservices.

The following diagram illustrates the data binding that typically is needed when you use a DataSet component.
The DataSet component is used to hold and organize your data; you must use data bindings and write ActionScript code to handle updates. Changes that are made to your data through UI components can be tracked and used to generate a DeltaPacket, an object produced by the DataSet component that contains a list of changes made to data at runtime. A resolver component can then manipulate the DeltaPacket into a specific format for use by external data sources. Using the logChanges() method of the DataSet component, you can track both changes made to the data and methods called.The following illustration shows the flow of data through a UI component, DataSet and Resolver component, and the DeltaPacket object produced.
For a common workflow and information on how you use the methods, properties, and events of the DataSet component to manage your data, see Using the DataSet component, DataSet class, and DeltaPacket interface in the Components Language Reference. The DataSet component uses functionality in the DataBinding classes. If you intend to work with the DataSet component in ActionScript only, without using the Binding and Schema tabs in the Component inspector to set properties, you must import the DataBinding classes into your FLA file and set schema properties in your code. For more information, see Making data binding classes available at runtime in the Components Language Reference. The DataSet component works only with Flash Player 7 or later. For more information on working with data in the DataSet component, see the following topics:
About loading data into the DataSet component on page 421 Accessing the data on page 423
About loading data into the DataSet component
To load data into the DataSet component, you edit the schema for the DataSet and create data bindings that can be done either in ActionScript or on the Bindings tab of the Component inspector. You need to edit the schema, in most cases, so that data appears correctly in your application. For information on editing schema, see Adding a component property to a schema on page 397 and Adding a schema field to a schema item on page 399. You can create bindings for the DataSet component in two ways:

An array of objects bound to the DataSet.items property (see DataSet.items in the Components Language Reference). An object bound to the DataSet.dataProvider property. This object should implement the DataProvider interface; see DataSet.dataProvider property and DataProvider API in the Components Language Reference.
The objects can be sophisticated client-side objects that mirror their server-side counterparts, or in their simplest form, a collection of anonymous objects with public properties representing the fields within a record of data. The DataSet component uses functionality in the DataBinding classes. If you intend to work with the DataSet component in ActionScript only, without using the Binding and Schema tabs in the Component inspector to set properties, youll need to import the DataBinding classes into your FLA file and set schema properties in your code. The following examples show different ways you can load objects into the DataSet component, using either ActionScript code or the Component inspector. The examples assume that you have specified a schema for the DataSet component on the Schema tab first; see the design-time example in Accessing the data on page 423. The following ActionScript example assigns an array of 100 anonymous objects to the items property of the myDataSet instance of the DataSet component. Each object represents a record of data.
Anonymous objects function loadData() { var recData = new Array(); for( var i:Number=0; i<100; i++ ) { recData[i]= {id:i, name:String("name"+i), price:i*.5}; } myDataSet.items = recData; } Remoting RecordSet The following ActionScript example assumes that youre using Flash Remoting and that youve made a remoting call that returns a RecordSet. The RecordSet object implements the DataProvider interface. The result is assigned to the dataProvider property of the myDataset component instance: function getSQLData_Result(result) {
myDataset.dataProvider = result; }
The following illustration shows an example of using the Component inspector to bind an array of objects returned from the web service, represented by the myWsc instance of the WebServiceConnector component. The illustration on the left shows the schema of the web service. The illustration on the right shows how the results array is bound to the items property of the myDataset component instance.
Array of objects returned from a web service
Array of objects returned from an XMLConnector component The following illustration shows an example of using the Component inspector to bind an array of XML nodes, represented with the XMLConnector component. It assumes that you have imported a schema for an XML file that contains an array of XML nodes. The illustration on the left shows the schema of the XML document, the array of XML nodes represented as an ActionScript array. The illustration on the right shows how the results.datapacket.row array is bound to the dataProvider property of the myDataset instance of the DataSet component.

To set up binding to this data at design time, you create persistent fields for the DataSet component that represent the properties of the object. The following procedure shows an example of how you would access the same customer information data at design time. You bind the recData array of objects to the items property of the DataSet component in ActionScript, as in the runtime example. Then, you bind DataGrid.dataProvider into myDataSet.items using the Component inspector.
To access data at design time:
Drag a DataSet component onto the Stage. Name it myDataSet. Select a layer in the Timeline, and press F9 to open the Actions panel. Type the following code:
var recData = [{id:0, firstName:"Frank", lastName:"Jones", age:27, usCitizen:true}, {id:1, firstName:"Susan", lastName:"Meth", age:55, usCitizen:true}, {id:2, firstName:"Pablo", lastName:"Picasso", age:108, usCitizen:false}]; myDataSet.items = recData;
With the DataSet component selected, click the Schema tab of the Component inspector, and click the Add a Component Property (+) button. Set the value for Field Name to firstName and leave the Data Type as String. Create three more component properties for the other name/value pairs in the code: field name = lastName, data type = String; field name = usCitizen, data type = Boolean; and field name = age, data type = Integer. Drag a DataGrid component onto the Stage, and name it myGrid. Select the DataGrid component, and click the Bindings tab of the Component inspector. Click the Add Binding (+) button to add a new binding. Select dataProvider:Array. Click Bound To, select the DataSet component, and select its dataProvider:Array property. Direction and select In. Save and test the application. The data contained within the data set appears in the data grid.

6. 7. 8. 9.

10. Click 11.
The ability to make use of dynamic component properties that are added to the Schema tab at design time is a special feature of the DataSet component. The DataSet component uses the field name of these properties to map them to the properties of the object or array of objects. The settings that are applied to these properties at design time are then used by the data set at runtime.

If you do not create persistent fields for the DataSet component and you bind it to a WebServiceConnector component or an XMLConnector component that defines a schema, the DataSet component tries to create the correct fields based on the connector components schema, which might not work. For more information, see Managing data with the DataSet component on page 419.
Persistent fields that are defined for a DataSet component take precedence over the schema for a connector component.

Data resolution

The resolver components let you convert changes made to the data within your application into a format that is appropriate for the external data source that you are updating. The resolver components can also receive updates from an external data source and convert them into a format that is appropriate for the DataSet component to receive them. Flash includes the following resolver components: XUpdateResolver component for XML data sources RDBMSResolver component for relational databases
Typically, you use the resolver components with the DataSet component. When a user edits data in your application, the data is captured in the DataSet component. The DataSet component generates a DeltaPacket, an object that contains a list of changes made to the data at runtime. The resolver component then converts the DeltaPacket to the appropriate format (update packet). When an update is sent to the server, the server should respond with a results packet containing errors or updated field values from the operations that were performed. The resolver components can convert this information back into a DeltaPacket that can then be applied to the data set to keep it synchronized with the external data source.

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The RDBMSResolver component provides limited synching ability at this time.
Resolver components do not send any data from a SWF file to server-side scripts or external data sources. You need to set up this kind of data transfer. Here are the most common ways to send data outside a SWF file: Bind the resolvers processed data to a connector component, such as the XMLConnector or WebServiceConnector components. This connector component instance is in addition to the instance that connects your data source to a DataSet or to UI components; see the diagram at the beginning of this article. Write ActionScript code using the LoadVars class (see LoadVars in the ActionScript 2.0 Language Reference).

Write ActionScript code using the XML class (see XML in the ActionScript 2.0 Language Reference).
For more information, see Working with External Data in Learning ActionScript 2.0 in Flash.
Resolving XML data with the XUpdateResolver component
The XUpdateResolver component converts changes made to the data in your application into XUpdate statements that can be processed by an external data source. XUpdate is a standard for describing changes that are made to an XML document and is supported by a variety of XML databases, such as Xindice and XHive. You can write your own server code to handle updates, for example, in your own ASP page, Java servlet, or ColdFusion component. For more information, see the XUpdate specification at http://xmldb-org.sourceforge.net/. The XUpdateResolver component works only in applications published for Flash Player 7 or later. For a common workflow and information about the methods, events, and properties of the XUpdateResolver component, see XUpdateResolver component in the Components Language Reference. You need to set the correct encoder when you use the XUpdateResolver component; for more information, see the discussion of the DatasetDeltaToXUpdateDelta encoder in Schema encoders on page 436. For a tutorial that uses this component, see the XUpdate tutorial, XML Tutorial: Timesheet, at www.adobe.com/go/learn_fl_tutorials.
Updates sent to an external data source
When a user edits data in your Flash application, the data is captured in the DataSet component. The DataSet component produces a DeltaPacket, which the resolver component uses to create an update packet. The update packet consists of XUpdate statements, which are communicated to an external data source through a connector component. These statements describe the inserts, edits, and deletes performed on the DataSet component. You can view or bind the contents of the update packet using the xupdatePacket property of the XUpdateResolver component.

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The information contained within the XML update packet is affected in part by the component parameter values that are assigned by the developer. For information on the XUpdateResolver component parameters, see Using the XUpdateResolver component in the Components Language Reference.
The following XML code is an example of an update packet created by an XUpdateResolver component:
<?xml version="1.0"?> <xupdate:modifications version="1.0" xmlns:xupdate="http://www.xmldb.org/ xupdate"> <xupdate:insert-after select="/addresses/address[1]" > <xupdate:element name="address"> <xupdate:attribute name="id">2</xupdate:attribute> <fullname>Lars Martin</fullname> <born day='2' month='12' year='1974'/> <town>Leizig</town> <country>Germany</country> </xupdate:element> </xupdate:insert-after> </xupdate:modifications>

To set up a calculated field for the DataSet component:
Select the DataSet component, and click the Schema tab in the Component inspector. Click the Add a Component Property (+) button. This step adds a field to the schema. Using the Schema Attributes pane, give the new component property a field name, and set its kind to calculated. In ActionScript code, use the calcFields event of the DataSet component to assign this field a value at runtime.
You should assign a value to a calculated field only within the DataSet components calcFields event.
For an ActionScript code example, see Schema kinds on page 435.
Setting up schemas for XML documents In an XML document, all data is stored as a string. Sometimes you want the fields of an XML document to be available as data types other than String. The following example shows an application that pulls in data from an XML file: <datapacket> <row id="1" billable="ON" rate="50" hours="3" /> <row id="2" billable="OFF" rate="50" hours="6" /> </datapacket>
If you use this XML file to import a schema for the XMLConnector components results property, it generates the following code:
results : XML datapacket : Object row : Array [n] : object @billable: String @hours : Integer @id : Integer @rate : Integer
Suppose you want to treat the row node as a record within a grid, and you want the @billable attribute to be treated as a Boolean value and show a true or false value in the grid instead of ON or OFF. Getting the data into the grid is simple: You can simply bind the row schema field to the dataProvider property of the grid. The following procedure describes how to get the @billable attribute to be treated as a Boolean value and display a true or false value.
To make the @billable attribute display a true or false value:
Select the XMLConnector component, click the Schema tab, and select the @billable schema field. In the bottom pane of the Schema tab, set the data type property to Boolean. Set the encoder property to Boolean. Select Encoder Options and enter on for strings that represent true, and enter off for strings that represent false. The encoder now takes the XML data in its raw form (String) and converts it into an ActionScript Boolean value. Using the encoder options, it knows how to encode the string values correctly.

The template string should contain 0 or 1 instances of "YYYY", "MM", "DD", "HH", "NN", and/or "SS", mixed with any other combination of characters. When converting from date to string, the numeric year, month, date, hour, minutes, and seconds, respectively, are substituted into the template, in place of YYYY, MM, and so on. When converting from string to date, the string must exactly match the template, with the correct number of digits for each of year, month, day, and so on.

DateToNumber

Converts a Date object into its numeric equivalent. The DataSet component uses this encoder for fields that are of the Date type. These values are stored within the DataSet component as numbers so that they can be sorted correctly.
Number Converts data of the String type into the ActionScript Number type. There are no authoring settings for this encoder.
DatasetDeltaToXUpdateDelta
You use this encoder extracts information from a DeltaPacket and generates XPath statements that are passed to the XUpdateResolver component to generate XUpdate statements. It gets the information that is needs to generate the XPath statements from two places: The rowNodeKey property, which you must specify with the Encoder Options property (defined in the third bullet, below). Within the schema that was used for the XMLConnector component that originally retrieved the data.
Using this information, the encoder can generate the correct XPath statements needed to identify your data within the XML file. The encoder options contain one property:
The rowNodeKey property (String type). In order for an XML file to be updated, the file must be structured in such a way that the node that represents a record in your data set can be uniquely identified with an XPath statement. This property combines an XPath statement with a field parameter to uniquely identify the row node within the XML file and the field within the data set that makes it unique. In the following example, the row node represents a record within the XML file. The value of the id attribute is what makes the row unique.
<datapacket> <row id="1" date="01/01/2003" rate="50" hours="5" /> <row id="2" date="02/04/2003" rate="50" hours="8" /> </datapacket>
The XPath to uniquely identify the row node is shown in the following example:

datapacket/row[@id=xxx]

In this example, xxx represents a value for the id attribute. In a typical case, the id attribute in the XML file would be bound to the id field of the DataSet component. Therefore, the rowNodeKey value would be as follows:

datapacket/row[@id=?id]

The question mark symbol (?) identifies that this is a field parameter. The id value specifies the name of the field in the data set. At runtime, the XUpdateResolver component substitutes the value from the id field of the data set to generate the correct XPath for the specified record.

Adding bindings using path expressions
You can use path expressions for data binding in two areas:
In the Add Binding dialog, to identify the field you are binding to In the Bound To dialog box, to identify the field youre binding from. Absolute paths:

/A/B/C

The following XPath expressions are supported:

Relative paths:

Node selection using node name or wildcard:

/A/B/C /A/B/* /*/*/C

(node selection by name) (node selection of all child nodes of /A/B by wildcard) (node selection of all C nodes that have exactly two ancestors)
Predicate syntax to further specify nodes to be selected:
(child node syntax; selects all B nodes that have a C node as a child) (attribute existence syntax; selects all B nodes that have an attribute named id) (attribute value syntax; selects all B nodes that have an id attribute whose

/B[@id]

/B[@id="A1"]

value is A1)

Support for predicate comparison operators:
Support for Boolean and and or values in predicates:
/B[@id=1 and @customer="adobe"]
The following operators are not supported: "<", ">", "//".
To add a binding using path expressions:
In either the Add Binding dialog box or the Bound To dialog box, select Use path expression. Enter a path expression to identify the schema item to which you want to bind. Path expressions are entered in the following formats:
For properties that contain ActionScript data, the path follows this format:

field [.field].

In this format, field is equal to the name of a field (such as addresslist.street).
For properties that contain XML data, the path follows this format:
In this format, XPath is a standard XPath statement (such as addressList/street).
Click OK to return to the Bindings tab.
Default data binding events
When you use the Bindings tab to create a binding between two components, the binding is triggered by the default component event. If you want a binding to execute independently of the default component event (which is predetermined by Flash), you must manually refresh the binding with ActionScript code. For more information, see ComponentMixins class in the Components Language Reference (in particular, see the ComponentMixins.refreshDestinations() and ComponentMixins.refreshFromSources() methods).