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January 05, 2006

Flash and Ajax: Happy Together

Adaptive Path recently released their Flash/JavaScript Date Slider under a Creative Commons License.  It's a very slick component that they use with Measure Map for visually selecting date ranges, and which shows excellent interoperability between Flash and JavaScript. It uses the JavaScript / Flash Integration Kit as the bridge between Flash and JavaScript, and I think integrates very nicely into HTML/Ajax applications. From the Date Slider site:

The date slider is a Flash visualization that Measure Map uses as one way to navigate the site. We are happy to provide a version of this date slider to the public... SWF version with the ability to customize the look & feel of the slider as well as the location and name of the XML file.

What I really find interesting about this project is that it is a standalone component which integrates Flash and Ajax very seamlessly, and therefore tends to blur the line between the two technologies. Too often I read about the "Flash vs Ajax" debate when the reality is that Flash is very Ajax friendly, especially with the new ExternalInterface object.

See it in action.

Posted by cantrell at January 5, 2006 08:55 AM | References

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Comments

Excellent! Not that I can foresee ever having a use for this particular component I do think and believe that it fortells to future of the Internet. Zealots will remain (there are still Netscape zealots running around... why?) but I do think that the technology of the future will be a blend of all the current processed, applications and technology existing today as well as those we haven't conceived yet.

It also show's that as these 'technologies' mature 2-way communication is possible. And with things like FlashVNC out there the future is bright indeed!

Posted by: Anthony at January 5, 2006 10:21 AM

They have also implimented view source and license (just right click on the example).

mike chambers

mesh@adobe.com

Posted by: mike chambers at January 5, 2006 11:02 AM

Does anyone have a copy or a new link for the date slider? The one mentioned in this post does not seem to work anymore.

http://www.measuremap.com/developer/slider/

Posted by: Keith Takayesu at February 8, 2006 06:02 AM