Macromedia Announces Flash / JavaScript Integration Kit
by S. Isaac Dealey
The ability for programmers to pass data between Flash and JavaScript
has existed for quite some time. Unfortunately the communication between
these two environments has been limited in scope and difficult to manage.
For example, only string variables could be transferred between the two
environments, making the utilization of other types of data such as arrays, nulls and dates difficult at best.
All of that has changed. Macromedia announced the release of a new cross-browser Flash / JavaScript Integration Kit to broaden the capabilities of communication between these environments and to simplify development of applications which need this communication. Although the first release of the kit still has some limitations (objects can't be passed between environments if they are self-referencing), the kit's support for multiple data types and cross-environment function calls represents a dramatic step forward in Flash integration with HTML/JavaScript. To ensure the kit's continued development, it was released under an Apache-like open-source license (which requires only proper attribution and disclaimed liability) and is hosted by OSFlash.org.
Flash/JavaScript Integration Kit (Macromedia)
Flash/JavaScript Integration Kit Project Page (OSFlash.org)