For those out there that are like me, more of a mix of interface design and backend coding, DevShed.com has a new article for you. So many of the Flash pieces out there are just for show - using the built-in effects to make something that people look at and think "wow, cool - I wish I could do that!" So, they learn Flash without learning the real power that lies behind it. Sure, Flash can make some nice "pretty" things, but it's also pretty powerful when it comes to importing data from an external script. Anything that you can URL-encode, you can use in a Flash movie. Building Data-Driven Flash Movies shows you how to do just that. They give the example of a PHP script (of course) that grabs info from a MySQL database and URL-encodes that info for the movie. The Flash movie then calls the external script (with a loadVariablesNum call) and grabs that page, which magically sets those values in your movie. The article also shows you how to make a bit more technical scripts that act as a news ticker and make a dynamic Flash menu from the settings on an external resource.

This is where most people have missed out on the power of Flash. Sure there are a few sites out there that use and abuse Flash and external scripts to provide dynamic results, but not as many as their should be. Flash is still seen as something to "make pretty things" in, when it should be considered for the serious developmental tool it is.