» #csuc09 Cascade Conference, Flash and Data Integration 9/29/2009
Justin Klingman, Manager of Web Design and Content Management, Beacon Technologies. “Flash and Data Integration.”
Benefits of integrating Flash into Cascade Server
- End users can update Flash
- Time & expense savings
- End user won’t be able to mess up Flash code
30,000 Foot View
- Flash player written to read its data from an XML file
- Create Data Definition with necessary data elements
- Data Definition attached to the homepage
- Data Definition outputs data via XSL into Flash player’s XML file format
Step 1: Develop Flash
- Design
- Identify elements end user will update
- Develop
- Updatable elements read by Flash from XML
- Create XML file your way… Cascade will adapt using XSL
- Get it working outside Cascade
Step 2: Import into Cascade
- Load files into Cascade
- Use spearate directory for Flash files (.swf, .js, .xml, etc..)
- Turn off access to end users
- Import images to be used to folder editable by end user
Step 3: Data Definition
- Include all updateable elements from Step 1
- Can have data elements for other functionality
Step 4: Embed Flash
- Use XSL to embed exactly like HTML file from Step 1
- Hideen from Cascade using CDATA tags
- Flash does not display in Cascade
- Develop way for end users to see output
Step 5: Enable Front End
- Attach Data Definition
- Attach XSL
- …
- Edit homepage and fill out the data you want
FFlash XML File
Convert Flash XML file to page asset
- Output as XML using target
- Use simple XML template
- Indexes homepage Data Definition
- Will overwrite XML file created for Flash in Step 1
- Not directly editable by end user
- Will need to be published by end user
They tried using XML created by default in Cascade, but big workaround need by Flash developer—instead, create the XML you need for Flash and make it with Cascade.
Step 7: Publish
- Publish to Web server to test
- You’re done
- Bask in your easy success
Additional Ideas
- Expand to pull in data from across site
- News, Student Bios, Calendar events, Sports scores, etc.
- Can use same technique for other applications
- Silverlight, Java applets, JavaScript, .NET, PHP, etc.
- Control full flash sites with Cascade
From handout:
30,000 Foot View
(above)
Setup a template for XML output
- Copy your main target group, rename to “XML”
- Click “Edit” and change Output File Extension to ”.xml”
- Create a template that just has “
in it - Attach the XML template to the XML target
Creating an XML document
- Create a configuration set with the XML template
- Copy a page asset and rename it to the desired XML file name
- Click “Edit”, go to “System” and change the configuration set to the XML configuration set. Use a simple/blank metadata set and remove any data definition
- Attach a block to the default region that indexes the page’s Content Type that contains the data you wish to use
- Create an XSLT format that interprets the data into an XML schema. Attach this format to the same default region.
Homepage data definition
(see handout for code)
XSLT to insert Flash onto Homepage
(see handout for code)
XML schema used
(see handout for code)
XSLT used to create XML schema from homepage data definition
(see handout for code)