Please help a Final Year University Student!!!!!

[Zak2001]

Hello to all of the Flash Community...

If I can just explain my dilemma...

I am a final year combined honours student at university. Because I was totally new to Web design and did not know a singly thing about the subject I decided to learn about this area for my final year dissatation.

Well I am designing a Flash 5 website for a fictitous computer supplies company. I have picked up Flash pretty quickly but there are a few things I am having problems with. It would be greatly appreciated if anyone out there can help a student in distress!!

Basically I have developed a simple database in Microsoft Access which has tables containing various computer components, eg. motherboards, cpu, monitors, etc.

The front-end of the site is using Flash, middleware is ColdFusion and back-end is Access.

Problem I am having is how to make Flash Communicate effectively with ColdFusion. I have developed simple ColdFusion scripts which query the database and return the make and model of each component in a given table. The query also returns how many records have been retrieved from the database. I have also developed a component which calls the ColdFusion query in a flash movie. But once it is called up I cannot return back to the previous page.

But it doesn't do exactly what I want it to do. I need to be able to do the following:

A Web page has been designed which displays buttons: each button is for a different component, eg.Motherboards, Memory, CPU, etc. When the user clicks on a button, eg. 'Monitors' it should tell ColdFusion to communicate with the database and then return all the 'monitors' in the flash web page. It would also help if these items were selectable so a user could select a number of items which could then be processed on an order form.

I guess this is quite a lot to ask for? But I am in desperate need for some help in this matter - the deadline for my dissatation is the 10th of May!!!

Also I have implemented an animated image which I want to use as an e-mail link for the Website. How do I turn this animated image into a mailto link? (so that if it is clcked, it opens up a pre-addressed e-mail).

Thanks for your time, and I hope that someone out there can help me...

[Jls2K]

Easiest bit first:

getURL("mailto:guy@place.com")

that will make your mail client popup with the email addy in it.

Now, abotu the database interaction: I dont know cold Fusion but I have done stuff with Flash/PHP and mySQL before. I would recomend you read this tutorial (by me) http://www.actionscripts.org/tutoria...on/index.shtml as it covers how to use loadVariables to call data from a serverside scrip nad how to have it returned. Once you've masterred that youc ould have soemthing like this:
your script returns an integer which represents the total number of entries to be returned
it also returns the entries' details in sequentially numberred variables, like 'item1', 'item2', etc. Then you could use a for loop which would duplicate a button with a text field on it. The text field you coul set to contain the text in the item variable and the link could also be dynamic based on information fromt he database.

Not easy but doable.

Cheers

Jesse
[Edited by Jls2K on 04-26-2001 at 01:49 AM]

[Zak2001]

Cheers again Jesse. Many thanks.