I need to create a wizard for a Flash 9/ActionScript 3.0 application. The wizard would be a set of dialogs/windows for each step and the buttons ‘back/next/cancel’ for navigation through the wizard. Within the Adobe CS3 authoring environment there does not seem to be a straightforward way to create a set of dialogs or windows that would contain the steps for the wizard.
I will not be able to use Flex at this time, which seems to have much better support for built in GUI components such as containers. If there is a way to use Flex components in the Adobe Flash CS3 authoring environment I would be interested in that information, also.
One approach that I am thinking about is to create separate timeline layers for each dialog/window that I would need for the wizard. As the user steps through the wizard, the application would set visible or not visible the components contained in the timeline layers that is appropriate for the current step in the wizrd.
I think that the approach will work, but it does not seem to be an optimal solution. What are some alternative approaches that can be used from the Adobe CS3 authoring environment to create a wizard?
Make each stage be a separate frame in the timeline. The when the ‘Next’ button is clicked, verify the validity of the data. If it’s bad, show an error. If it’s good, store it away somewhere for use at the end, and proceed to the next frame.