Linking text fields to external spreadsheet file

[murph402]

Hi, I'm new to the forum. I know basic actionscripting, but I've come across a problem that I'm struggling with, and haven't found much specific information about it in my searches.

I'm making a slideshow in flash mx 2004. It includes 100 images, each accompanied by a text description. Each image and description text field is in its own movie clip. The flash movie is split up into 5 scenes of 20 images each. I'm hoping to be able to dynamically link each of the text fields to a specific cell within a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet, so that all of the text can be written externally.

I read the previous post about dynamic text fields, but I'm still not sure how my code should look, especially since it involves links to cells within the spreadsheet, instead of to a whole file.

In the "Flash Help," it gives this code for using the "LoadVars" action to link a text file to a dynamic text field:

Features_lv = new LoadVars();
Features_lv.onLoad = onText;
Features_lv.load("safetyfeatures.txt");
function onText() {



newFeatures_txt.text = Features_lv.safetyFeatures


I tried substituting my file name and text field instance name into the code, and it doesn't display anything. I'm pretty inexperienced with this kind of actionscripting, so any kind of help or suggestions that anyone has to get me going in the right direction would be a huge help. Thanks to anyone who looked at my post or tries to help.

[whispers]

as far as I know you cant use a spreadsheet. Excel (.xls) files can NOT be imported or read by the FLASHPLAYER that I know of.

You might be able to save your spreadsheet in a text file format..and have flash read that. but any "data" you are trying to receive will need to be in the format of:

&varName=value

(varName is what FLASH will look for as the "name of the variable" to read. & value is the data that will be displayed back in flash.

[murph402]

Okay, thanks a lot whispers. That should work for what I need