| As you read in the previous chapters of this book, one of the great things about Dreamweaver is the robustness of the application development tools. With the new Macromedia MX product family line, the ease of Web application has been discovered in other applications aside from Dreamweaver, namely Flash MX. Flash MX can be used to create Web applications with any middleware, whether it be ASP, PHP, or ColdFusion. You can develop these types of applications using such methods as loadVariables and getURL. It's not that these methods aren't adequate solutions, but there are more efficient, elegant options available for the new MX product family. When Macromedia bought Allaire, they made a commitment to make ColdFusion the backbone of their Web application efforts. This shines through with Dreamweaver MX, Flash MX, and ColdFusion MX. Flash MX and ColdFusion MX Integration With the new versions of ColdFusion, Dreamweaver, and Flash comes tighter integration between these applications. There are no more workarounds to get Flash and ColdFusion to communicate with one another, and the new methods offer increased performance and reliability. With these new products, Macromedia offers the next generation in the Web development process. Designers and developers can work together to create robust Flash applications. You can harness the power of Flash to offer an interesting and engaging front end and all the while offer a powerful and robust database back end. With the MX versions of Flash and ColdFusion, Macromedia has brought the client and server closer together. All the communication is still performed through HTTP, but with added technology called AMF, or Action Message Format. AMF is part of the Macromedia Flash Remoting service. You're now able to access client ActionScript classes that will communicate with the Flash Gateway, the server-side component of the Flash Remoting Service. As mentioned earlier, in previous versions of Flash, most integration between ColdFusion and Flash was handled with the loadVariables, getURL actions, and the XML Object. These methods are still available for the Flash 6 Player and may be used with any type of middleware, but AMF is preferred when dealing with integers, arrays, recordsets, and structures. What's truly exciting about these technologies is they push the envelope for Flash to be a truly viable Web authoring tool that goes far beyond vector-based animation and silly intros. Flash MX Components Flash MX components offer quick development tools for commonly created components. Furthermore, they offer the capability to create reusable code. You have the capability to access all different types of properties, parameters, and methods of these clips. You can find them in the Components panel by choosing Window, Components in Flash MX. This opens the Components panel, as pictured in Figure C.5. Figure C.5. The Components panel in Flash MX offers access to the components that ship with the product.
You can download additional components from the Macromedia Exchange (http://www.macromedia.com/exchange/flash), which is being constantly updated. The second set of components offers additional objects that are commonly created by developers. You can install these components using the Macromedia Extension Manager, which must already be installed in your system, or you can install the Extension Manager by downloading it from the Macromedia Exchange site. Not only do components save time for developers and designers alike, they also afford them the opportunity to work and collaborate with one another on various projects. If you are looking into using components, you can also create your own, offering the ultimate in flexibility. Components offer a great amount of functionality, especially when integrating them with ColdFusion. | 
