Flash CS3 Map Evolution

The Flash CS maps I have been building using AS3 is moving along slowly. I shared a link in an earlier blog entry to the first phase. Most of the time here was spent assembling the assets ie. movieclips of each continent/country/state and supporting XML. The XML is tied to the movieclip via a number - <id>1</id>, sprite 1. Thus I have an all continents swf and individual continents eg. northamerica.swf. These are made up of individual country/state movieclips. Clicking on a continent, loads the individual continent swf. Since Flex is the glue for the swf's, I have used eventing to communicate between each of the swf's; flash to flex, flex to flash. The eventing code I used was an adaptation of code shared by Jason Fincanon. The code is as follows:


The next phase of the map I have also now posted.



Here I have integrated the zoom functionality from Peter Organa (see earlier post). Thus the zoom.swf provided by Peter now listens to which continent was selected and loads the appropriate swf. Now a selected continent can be panned, zoomed into and out. This will allow, in the next phase, geolocated pins to be added to the map.

Flash CS3 Map Zoom

I've been building a Flash CS3 map mentioned earlier in the blog. The next thing to be done was zoom. From past experience this is always a tricky business. I wondered if anybody might have shared their solution. Eureka! Peter Organa to the rescue. He has written just the best zoom and pan tool. Scroll wheel even works. Best of all its in AS3 and Peter has shared the source. Made my day!