I’d like to take a moment to introduce you to the newest member to join our staff team: Alex Jillard. Alex is an experienced flash and actionscript developer, who approached me about bringing flash related articles and tutorials to Devlounge. We are always looking to expand our reach, and we think by catering to flash developers in just another step in doing just that. Tomorrow, a new category will be added to the articles page called “Flash and Actionscript”. Watch for it to begin to be populated very soon. We are very excited to have Alex on board, and we hope many of you will find his posts informative and useful.

To get an idea of what to expect from Alex, here are some of his favorite articles he has written:

• http://www.sanctifiedstudios.com/dynamic-movie-clip-referencing-in-actionscript/
• http://www.sanctifiedstudios.com/if-and-else-statements-with-actionscript/
• http://www.sanctifiedstudios.com/3-tips-to-help-debug-your-actionscript/

Also, here is a teaser to an extensive XML / Actionscript article he is currently working on:

Using Actionscript to get XML content where you want it
I find that there are many tutorials out there showing how to make a simple xml driven project, like a photo gallery or menu, which is great, but if you want to use xml elsewhere, you’d be a bit stuck.

The goal of this tutorial is to teach you how to use xml and Actionscript together to get dynamic xml driven content exactly where you want it. I will be showing you some logic for using and creating xml, a good technique for getting that xml into Flash and breaking it down so it is easy to access as you need it, and how to that data onto your website or application where you need it.

To give some visuals and examples to the tutorial, I’ll step you through making a website using everything you’ll learn. In the end you should have gathered enough knowledge to use xml when and where you need it.

Looking for your input

One thing Alex has asked if for me to ask you, the readers, for article suggestions. What kind of tutorials do you want to see involving Actionscript and Flash, and what do you want to know in general? Please leave your suggestions in the comments; we’d really love to hear them!