Integrating Flash with Web Applications > Creating forms > Using variables in forms

You can use variables in a form to store user input. To set variables, you use editable text fields or assign actions to buttons in interface elements. For example, each item in a pop-up menu is a button with an action that sets a variable to indicate the selected item. You can assign a variable name to an input text field. The text field acts like a window that displays the value of that variable.

When you pass information to and from a server-side script, the variables in the Flash movie must match the variables in the script. For example, if the script expects a variable called password, the text field into which users enter the password should be given the variable name password.

Some scripts require hidden variables, which are variables that the user never sees. To create a hidden variable in Flash, you can set a variable on a frame in the movie clip that contains the other form elements. Hidden variables are sent to the server-side script along with any other variables set on the Timeline that contains the action that submits the form.