Flash doesn't play

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7/22/2009 9:44:30 PM
groston
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Gerry Roston gerry (at) pairofdocs (dot) net

Flash doesn't play

Not sure why I am having trouble with this. I copied some flash files to Data\Sites\1\flash. The files copied are:

  • filename.fla - 208 kB
  • filename.swf - 34 kB
  • filename_2.flv - 12.7 MB

On an HTML form, I clicked the Add Flash button in the toolbar, browsed to filename.swf, and selected it. However, nothing appears on the page. The flash is embedded on the page - when I right-click the region, I get the flash context menu. The flash files should all be good - I copied them from the previous version of the web-site. I did check file permissions, and they are set properly.

Any suggestions?

7/26/2009 10:07:28 PM
groston
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Gerry Roston gerry (at) pairofdocs (dot) net

Re: Flash doesn't play

bump!

p.s. The page source looks like this:

<div id="ctl01_mainContent_ctl00_divSingleItem" class="modulecontent">

  <embed menu="true" loop="true" play="true" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" src="/Data/Sites/1/flash/ace_final.swf" pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer" width="550" height="400"></embed>

</div>
 

p.p.s. Same behavior under both FF and IE.

7/27/2009 5:10:53 AM
Joe Audette
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Re: Flash doesn't play

Hi Gerry,

I don't really know all that much about Flash but suspect that the toolbar integration in FCKeditor only supports flash movies that auto play. Lots of Flash things require parameters and other things like scripting to get them started. I think most people use swfobject to setup flash. I've been thinking of building a Flash Module around swfobject, in fact started it once a while back. I don't have the tools or skills to make Flash content though. If you could email me a couple of flash movies I could use for testing maybe I will give it a try sometime this week.

Best,

Joe

8/6/2009 9:57:48 PM
groston
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Gerry Roston gerry (at) pairofdocs (dot) net

Re: Flash doesn't play

Joe,

I have been working with swfobject, but to no avail. Using the tutorial here, I was able to create a html page which loads and plays my flash file. However, when I embedded the code into my mojoPortal HTML page element, it does not work.

Regarding your request for a flash file, there is one included in the swfobject download.

Boring details:

Here is the html page which works. (This file resides in c:\inetpub\wwwroot. the mojoPortal base directory is c:\inetpub\wwwroot\mojocms.):

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" lang="en" xml:lang="en">
<head>
<title></title>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1" />
<script type="text/javascript" src="mojocms/Data/Sites/1/flash/swfobject.js"></script>
<script type="text/javascript">
swfobject.registerObject("myFlashContent", "9.0.0");
</script>
</head>
<body>
<div>
<object classid="clsid:D27CDB6E-AE6D-11cf-96B8-444553540000" width="550" height="400" id="myFlashContent">
<param name="movie" value="mojocms/Data/Sites/1/flash/ace_final.swf" />
<!--[if !IE]>-->
<object type="application/x-shockwave-flash" data="mojocms/Data/Sites/1/flash/ace_final.swf" width="550" height="400">
<!--<![endif]-->
<a href="http://www.adobe.com/go/getflashplayer">
<img src="http://www.adobe.com/images/shared/download_buttons/get_flash_player.gif" alt="Get Adobe Flash player" />
</a>
<!--[if !IE]>-->
</object>
<!--<![endif]-->
</object>
</div>
</body>
</html>
 

Here is the code I inserted into the HTML element which does not work:

<script type="text/javascript" src="Data/Sites/1/flash/swfobject.js"></script>
<script type="text/javascript">
swfobject.registerObject("myFlashContent", "9.0.0");
</script>
<div>
<object classid="clsid:D27CDB6E-AE6D-11cf-96B8-444553540000" width="550" height="400" id="myFlashContent">
<param name="movie" value="Data/Sites/1/flash/ace_final.swf" />
<!--[if !IE]>-->
<object type="application/x-shockwave-flash" data="Data/Sites/1/flash/ace_final.swf" width="550" height="400">
<!--<![endif]-->
<a href="http://www.adobe.com/go/getflashplayer">
<img src="http://www.adobe.com/images/shared/download_buttons/get_flash_player.gif" alt="Get Adobe Flash player" />
</a>
<!--[if !IE]>-->
</object>
<!--<![endif]-->
</object>
</div>

 

Thanks for you help!

8/7/2009 7:23:44 AM
Joe Audette
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Re: Flash doesn't play

I would put the main script in the layout.master file not in the html content module. Also you need a / before Data so the path as you entered it is not resolving correctly.

If your site is running in a sub folder named mojocms the the path needs to start with /mojocms/Data

Actually in the latest mojoPortal, if you have the <ScriptLoader tag in your layout.master you can set IncludeSwfObject="true" on it and it will include the swfobject script and load it from the google cdn like other scripts.

Hope it helps,

Joe

 

8/7/2009 11:07:43 AM
groston
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Gerry Roston gerry (at) pairofdocs (dot) net

Re: Flash doesn't play

Joe,

I tried the / before data and putting both <script> lines in layout.aster (in the <head> section). Still nothing.

Can you provide some more guidance regarding the <scriptloader> tag. Guess I should try that next.

FYI - the page in question can be found here.

8/7/2009 11:12:33 AM
Joe Audette
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Re: Flash doesn't play

Just the main script goes in the header.

This part:

<script type="text/javascript">
swfobject.registerObject("myFlashContent", "9.0.0");
</script>

should go at the bottom of your html module content after the actual object with the id "myFlashContent"

The scriptloader will include the main swfobect script in the page for you if you set the property I mentioned. 

If your layout.master does not have the ScriptLoader then copy it from another skin.

Hope it helps,

Joe

8/7/2009 1:00:56 PM
groston
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Gerry Roston gerry (at) pairofdocs (dot) net

Re: Flash doesn't play

Joe,

I added scriptloader to the header. The header now looks like this:

<head id="Head1" runat="server"><title></title>
   <script type="text/javascript" src="/Data/Sites/1/flash/swfobject.js"></script>
   <portal:StyleSheetCombiner id="StyleSheetCombiner" runat="server" />
   <portal:IEStyleIncludes id="IEStyleIncludes1" runat="server" />
   <portal:MetaContent id="MetaContent" runat="server" />
   <portal:Favicon id="Favicon1" runat="server" />
   <portal:ScriptLoader IncludeSwfObject="true" id="ScriptLoader1" runat="server" />
   <meta name="viewport" content="width=670, initial-scale=0.45, minimum-scale=0.45"/>
</head>
 

I moved the script to the bottom of the html module.

Still nothing. No errors being reported. Very frustrating!

p.s. Regarding your earlier comment about a subfolder. From the perspective of the OS, the file is located in c:\inetpub\wwwroot\mojocms\Data\Sites\1\flash\swfobject.js. But, from the perspective of IIS, the file is located at www.ace-event.org/Data/Sites/1/flash/swfobject.js

8/7/2009 1:06:52 PM
Joe Audette
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Re: Flash doesn't play

When I view the source of your page it does not seem to be including the main swfobject script.

Are you using the latest version of mojoPortal? Older versions did not have the logic to include swfobject script but the latest version it should work.

 

8/7/2009 1:14:09 PM
groston
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Gerry Roston gerry (at) pairofdocs (dot) net

Re: Flash doesn't play

I am trying to figure out which version I have - my guess would be 2.3.0.4. Should I update to the latest?

8/7/2009 1:31:10 PM
Joe Audette
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Re: Flash doesn't play

Well I can't guarantee it will immediately solve the flash problem but it will make it easy to get the main swfobject script into the page. There have been lots of improvements since version 2.3.0.4 to 2.3.1.3

Best,

Joe

8/7/2009 1:44:57 PM
groston
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Gerry Roston gerry (at) pairofdocs (dot) net

Re: Flash doesn't play

I updated to 2.3.1.3.

I made a few minor tweaks to layout.master to make it more like the standard template for 2.3.1.3.

Still nothing.

(At this rate, I'm going to have to buy you a few more beers...)

8/9/2009 7:36:32 AM
Joe Audette
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Re: Flash doesn't play

Hi Gerry,

I just tried on my local machine  and it seems to work for me.

in layout.master head:

<portal:ScriptLoader id="ScriptLoader1" runat="server" IncludeSwfObject="true" />

this will include the swfobject script loaded from google.

Then I copied the examples expressInstall.swf and test.swf into /Data/Sites/1/flash/

Then I pasted this in to an html module using source view in the editor. I saved it without switching back to wysiwyg view.

<script type="text/javascript">
swfobject.registerObject("myId", "9.0.0", "/Data/Sites/1/flash/expressInstall.swf");
</script> <object id="myId" classid="clsid:D27CDB6E-AE6D-11cf-96B8-444553540000" width="300" height="120">
<param name="movie" value="/Data/Sites/1/flash/test.swf" /> <!--[if !IE]>--> <object type="application/x-shockwave-flash" data="/Data/Sites/1/flash/test.swf" width="300" height="120"> <!--<![endif]-->
<div>
<h1>Alternative content</h1>
<p><a href="http://www.adobe.com/go/getflashplayer"><img alt="Get Adobe Flash player" src="http://www.adobe.com/images/shared/download_buttons/get_flash_player.gif" /></a></p>
</div>
<!--[if !IE]>--> </object> <!--<![endif]--> </object>

It seems to work fine for me.

I'm going to add a module setting to the html module to make it include the swfobject script so you don't have to enable it globally on scriptloader unless you plan to use flash all over the place. This way it will include it automatically on any pages containing an html module configured to require it.

Hope it helps,

Joe

8/9/2009 11:28:46 AM
groston
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Gerry Roston gerry (at) pairofdocs (dot) net

Re: Flash doesn't play

Joe,

I am probably one of the few people around who knows even less than you about Flash. I think I have identified the cause of the problem - the main movie contents are held in a .flv file. The .swf appears to be some sort of wrapper file which arranges everything. The examples that you (and I) worked with that functioned had the video embedded (for lack of a better word) in the .swf. I think the problem might be related to directory paths for pointing to the .flv, etc., but I have not yet been able to resolve the problem.

If you have any final suggestions (other than praying), I would appreciate them. It seems that the issue is strictly on my end and has nothing to do with mojoPortal.

Thanks for all of the help!

8/9/2009 11:44:50 AM
Joe Audette
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Re: Flash doesn't play

Probably the .swf file expects you to pass a param with the path to the .flv file 

8/9/2009 11:52:22 AM
groston
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Gerry Roston gerry (at) pairofdocs (dot) net

Re: Flash doesn't play

Joe,

I have the Adobe flash s/w on my machine and fired it up for the first time today. There is a parameters section for entering the information related to the .flv file and the proper information was entered. (Keep in mind that on the previous version of the site, that the html page, the .swf, and .flv were all in the same directory, so everything worked just fine.) I tried putting in the full path, but that didn't help. Not sure what to do at this point - need to find someone who understands flash and using it within the context of a CMS.

8/9/2009 11:54:10 AM
Joe Audette
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Re: Flash doesn't play

You might try just putting the files in the root and then change the path so it just has the file name. 

8/11/2009 12:39:32 PM
groston
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Gerry Roston gerry (at) pairofdocs (dot) net

Re: Flash doesn't play

Tried that also - no luck.

So I cheated - I found some software to 'covert' the .flv into a .swf. Now it works. It seems that this is an issue worthy of further research for future releases. Thanks much for all of the help!

8/12/2009 7:01:17 AM
Joe Audette
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Re: Flash doesn't play

I don't consider this any bug nor think it needs more research on my end.

.swf is what is generally used for a main flash movie. I think people who are good with Flash have no problem with this and can easily pass the path of a .flv file to the main .swf file as a parameter but often the path is hard coded inside the main .swf. There are players that can play .flv files but typically I think people just launch them from inside the .swf which orchestrates things. Often there may be multiple clips managed by the main .swf, internally the .swf typically uses a VideoPlayer called FLVPlayback. They drag one onto the canvas of the .swf file from a toolbar.

Best,

Joe

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