XML and data in Flash for smooth updates
Florida has its presidential primaries under way today, and The Miami Herald has produced a nifty data-driven map to show the results:
University of Florida journalism alum Stephanie Rosenblatt (May 2007) e-mailed to say that the Herald graphic is using feeds coming in live from the AP. The numbers are feeding into XML documents, and Stephanie’s map of Florida reads in the latest data each time you click a county.
“This is completely dynamic and scripted in ActionScript 3,” she wrote, “… coded from scratch.”
Steph’s partner in this project is the Herald’s data guru Rob Barry. They test-drove the process yesterday using dummy data supplied by the AP.
I couldn’t be prouder of Steph, and I can’t claim any credit at all for this — I have almost no experience with AS3 and very little with XML. This is stuff she taught herself since graduation.
Great application of Flash! Congrats Stephanie!
January 30, 2008 at 10:53 amGreat work from Stephanie.
Similar work - and success - was provided for the South Carolina primaries from Jason Whitley of the Charlotte Observer.
http://media.charlotteobserver.com/images/graphics/scdemprimary/
http://media.charlotteobserver.com/static/images/graphics/scprimary/
And the concept of each - a map that provides dynamic information - is easily adapted for other stories: crime rates; property values; etc.
January 30, 2008 at 9:55 pm