Macabre Machinery

Okay, so the document is loaded and the object "document.flashfile" has been created. We go to flashReadCookie():

 
//set the read and parse functions in motion, 
//then send cookie info to Flash
	
	function flashReadCookie()
	
	
	//check to see if the cookie exists already
	
	var check=document.cookie;
	
	//is our cookie already on the user's machine?
	
	if (check.indexOf(cookieName) == -1)
	
	{
	
	//our cookie is not on the user's machine
	//cookieYes function tries to write a cookie 
	//and sets acceptsCookies accordingly...
	
	cookieYes();
	
	//user accepts cookies - go to options in Flash Movie
	
	if (acceptsCookies == true){document.flashfile.GotoFrame(4);}
	
	//user does not like cookies. send him away.
	
	else {document.flashfile.GotoFrame(9);}
	
	}
	
	//our cookie is there already - go ahead and send 
	//the cookie variables  to Flash
	
	else
	
	{
	
	//make an associative array called 'cookieInfo'
	
	var cookieInfo = new Array();
	
	readTheCookie(cookieInfo);
	
	document.flashfile.SetVariable("headlines",cookieInfo["headlines"]);
	
	document.flashfile.SetVariable("sports",cookieInfo["sports"]);
	
	document.flashfile.SetVariable("entertainment",cookieInfo["entertainment"]);
	
	document.flashfile.SetVariable("background",cookieInfo["background"]);
	
	document.flashfile.GotoFrame(2);
	
	}
	
	}

This is pretty well commented, but here is the logic in a nutshell:

• Load the cookie - is our cookie in there?
• If it is not, we check to see if the user even accepts cookies (the cookieYes function).
• If the user does accept cookies, we send him to the part of the Flash movie where he can give us the data with which to build the cookie. (1)(2)
• Suppose someone actually did come back to our site. We build an associative array (do they call it a "hash" in JavaScript)? called cookieInfo to hold the key:value pairs in the cookie. (See comments in these functions for explanation, or go right to the source).
• Now that readTheCookie and its minions returned the tidy array cookieInfo, we can send the variable values back to the Flash player, and send it to the frame where the user will see his preferred headlines.

Bride of Flashenstein
Bride of Flashenstein
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