How to browse a local HD from a flash interface?

[John Cojocari]

I am the application designer for a boutique development house specializing
in software, design & support.

I am currently working on a suite of productivity tools. As part of this
suite there is a file, fax and archive section. I would like create the
interface in flash so the user experience will be seamless.

Reality has set in and the only solution I have come up with to view the
local HD is to slice up the page and have a static HTML area to hold the
browse button.



My big question is how can I create the functionality of an HTML browse
button from a flash interface?

I understand that there is no prebuilt component but I was hoping you may
have found a solution or workaround or created an article to evoke the
browse feature from an swf interface while being cross browser & platform
compatible.

Thanks for the help

[J_Paul]

Hi John,

Are you basically wanting to make a button in Flash so the user can use the Flash navigation rather than a static HTML button?

Flash can interact with a users HD using actionscript. Are you wanting to open a folder? or a Drive?

[John Cojocari]

Yes I want have a button in flash which creates a selection sequence to locate a file a user wants to upload.

The extension of this would be to browse LAN Network drives to allow further file management. More important is the need for local HD.

If you have the examples/tutorials of both that would be great to see how you coded it.


Thanks for you attention.

John

john@cmag.net

[J_Paul]

Hi John,

I'd have to say the best possible way to do this would be to have your button in Flash with Javascript open another smaller window that'll fit your browse button area and use either PHP or ASP for the user to use to upload the file.

I've looked and can't find anything that tells how to make Flash browse a local HD, so I'd just go with regular coding.

There is a way to do it, but i'm not quite sure. I'll keep looking though.

Hope that helps

[cheath4design]

I was looking to do the same thing with a flash form and found this:
http://www.impulsedigital.com/idio/idio-v1/
it uses asp and I'm still decoding for my purposes, but thought this might help.

[J_Paul]

Hi Cheath4design,

Thanks for that one. It looks like it's actually written using javascript. I just got to skim over the code this morning, but will definitely be looking at it more later.