The Newz

The Newz demonstrates the use of real-time and personalized graphics. The site uses a form to collect information (i.e., name, gender, desired news categories, and hobby) from the visitor. The information is used to customize the navigation bar and personalize advertising banners. The collected data is saved in a cookie so that when the visitor returns, the site remains customized for them.

To explore the Newz site, it must be served through your web server because it uses Active Server Pages for much of the customization features.

Points of interest

On the front page, the masthead includes the current date and time as set on your server. The scrolling headlines is created with a Scrolling List template command. The navigation bar can be customized to display 3 of 5 feature areas. The different news feature areas are all generated from a single ASP page (newz_pages.asp) that uses a variable called pageCategory to construct the desired news page.

For more detailed information, see the !Read Me symbol in each Flash file and explore the ASP pages.

Key files

The file generator_banner.fla is the source movie for the banner at the top of the front page. This banner never changes. The file newz_banner.fla contains all of the banners that appear on the different feature pages. The banners are created by combining two different symbols from the file's library. The file newz_home_main_body.fla is the main body of the front page. It contains the scrolling list of headlines. The file newz_home_masthead.fla is the masthead file on the frontpage. The file newz_pages.fla is the masthead for the different feature areas. The file newz_UI.fla is the navigation bar.

The file customize.asp contains the form for collecting information from the visitor. The file default.asp is the home page. The file get_customize.asp retrieves the customized information from the cookie, or uses default values. The file newz_pages.asp is the single file that is used for the different feature pages.