CFM Session Management w/Flash

[Jim Mattingly]

Can I use CFM to tell Flash where to go in a movie timeline?

Example: An e-learning site that allows users to log out and then log back in and return to where they left off...

Any suggestions?

[Flash-db]

Yes you can use CFM to tell the flash movie where to go - but it can become complicated.  

A basic what would be after a user clicks on a certain area or logs into the site and needs to be directed to a different area - use loadvariables to send the users information to the script - Then in the Script you'll have to write the code that either queries the database for a location that he should goto or have some other code in their that handles this part.  

Ok so what you want to return is either a Number corresponding to a frame - Or a string corresponding to a frame label that you want the user to go to.  So it would be something like this that is printed out after the script has been processed:

Location=TestArea3

In your flash movie you could have a movie clip that loops and continually checks for a Value for Location to be returned.  Then after it has been returned have a piece of actionscript that looks like this:

if (Location ne "") {
gotoAndStop("TestArea3");
}

You'll have to have a frame labeled as "TestArea3" for this to work.  

You can also do this with Movie Clips for example if you wanted to either Load a movie clip that corresponds to TestArea3.  

You can do this with Frame Numbers as well - but sometimes it's harder to work with integers then it is with strings when you are using the returned data to control the flash movie.