flash (macromedia): Newb to flash. Watching various tutorials trying to come up to speed.

What I would like to create is a small flash ap that displays text in a
randowm order from an external text file. I wantot create a small text box in
the sidebar of a web page where customer references are displayed in random
order. (so users dont see the same ones each time) I want the text to fade in
and out as the next text item is displayed.

Can someone kindly point me to a resource that is close to helping to create
this? Or; is flash the wrong way to go for this?

Curt

Flash is a fine technology for doing what you want. Though, you could
accomplish this using DHTML as well (though the 'fade" not be as universal
compared to Flash). Either way, it's not all that difficult a task.

Be aware that if you use device fonts (glyph data not embedded), alpha effects
do not work on text fields. If the text is on a solid background you can use
tinting to accomplish a similar "fade" effect.