Randomly Selecting a record from a text area and showing it in swf?

[jaslr]

I am making a website in flash and one of the components on the homepage is "Artifact of the week" (is an historical site) .

So, instead of me manually changing the artifict image and words each week I would like to create a big txt file that includes: ArtifactImageURL field and ArtifactTxtInfo field (would be a paragraph or so) and make it into a record which is in an array. Then, everytime the page loads one record is randomly selected and displayed on the front page.

Any clues as to HOW to do this? should I be using a linked txt file to store the link to the image, and the information about the artifact OR should I be using xml? I'm puzzled.

 

[kennethkawamoto]

You can use either text or XML, but XML will be easier to manage so I would use XML if I were you.

Kenneth Kawamoto

http://www.materiaprima.co.uk

 

[shadedecho]

XML is a much better way to go than a text file. however, the really "best" option would be a simple database (like mysql, for instance), where your "random choice" is simply picking a number from 1 to the number of images, and retrieving just that one row from the database (a simple SELECT...WHERE statement) and using that data.

However, the simplest option is to use XML since that ability is inherent in Flash. using a database like that would probably necessitate using some external scripting language like PHP to connect to the DB and feed the data to your Flash file.