[thelist] Rich Internet Application
Michal Migurski
mike at teczno.com
Thu Sep 9 12:41:29 CDT 2004
On Sep 9, 2004, at 8:49 AM, evolt at mccullough-net.com wrote:
> sure.
>
> Basically you have a builder application. You have a basic shell of a
> uniform.
> You can add options. Collar, sleves, logo (upload), build a logo
> (probably a
> seperate app), clip art, names, numbers, colors (some could be 3
> color, some
> could be 4 or 1 color), a place for descriptive text about what you
> are looking
> for. Printout, email features, images update, rule update. Also there
> must be
> the ability to work outside of a web evironment such as a Java
> application on a
> Palm or desktop (Windows, Mac). The reason for different rules and
> images is
> that there could be more product lines, like pens, pencils, shirts,
> ballons.
> All of this must feel the end data to the Java application which will
> then
> finish the order process.
All the graphical requirements are pretty easily handled in Flash, so
no problem there. It's fairly trivial to serve up graphics for the
various picture elements from a database, and to do much of the color
manipulation inside Flash itself.
The offline viewing requirement is a bit of a tough one, though it
depends on what you want the user to do once they're offline.
One approach would be to package up downloadable copies of the app -
for example, a user might want a "snapshot" of the catalog for later
viewing. You might generate an archive file that contains the main .swf
(or a platform-dependent standalone application) along with directories
of supporting catalog information and assets. I'm working on something
exactly like this for a client right now, and packaging up the data for
offline viewing is not a hard problem, AS LONG AS the users are made to
understand that they are getting a static, non-modifiable snapshot of
their project at a particular point in time.
Another option is Macromedia's Central platform - I've not used it, but
my understanding is that it's supposed to be a sort of shell that flash
applications can run inside, with some extra permissions for storing
data on the user's machine or detecting when the network connection
been connected or disconnected, that are not possible in the usual web
browser context. I've heard that developers aren't exactly leaping on
this bandwagon, but it's available.
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