Andrew Stopford

Shockwave Flash is all over the Web. Its eye-catching, interactive animations have found a place on today's Web, and most Web firms use both Flash and its bigger brother on both their own and their clients' Web sites. Just over a year and a half ago, Macromedia introduced a product called Generator, and Flash got even better. What Is Generator? Generator allows Flash to dynamically change its own content, be it text or colors. It can even insert graphics, change the position of elements in the movie, and query databases for scrolling tickers and graphs. The key word to Generator is dynamic. How Can I Use Generator? Generator is split into two parts. Offline is a command-line-driven program (e.g., DOS) where for a given Generator file (or Shockwave Template - SWT) it will create an SWF (Shockwave Flash) file. Offline Generator can also create images, server-side and c... (more)

Coldfusion & Generator Stock Charts

Since my first article on Generator in CFDJ (Vol. 1, issue 5), Macromedia has released version 2. With this version you have full Flash 4 functionality and a host of new Generator objects to use, from tickers to tables. What I'll show in this article is the combination of Flash and another new object, Stock Chart. Stock Chart Object The Stock Chart object will give us a stock chart graph just like those you see on the big commercial Web sites that track stock data. This object gives us several options, such as "candle" graphs and display and color options. I'll cover these in de... (more)