Flash help!

Freeway
1

Every time I embed an SWF file, it creates a copy in the “Resources” folder of the project. The problem is that I am creating Flash files that depend on other files (such as XML) to work properly. Is there any way to just have Freeway leave the SWF file where it is and read it from there? Any help will be appreciated. Thanks.

TB

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2

Sometime around 25/3/09 (at 21:40 -0400) twb716 said:

I am creating Flash files that depend on other files (such as XML)
to work properly. Is there any way to just have Freeway leave the
SWF file where it is and read it from there?

No, that is a fundamental part of how Freeway works. However, all you
have to do is work with this… don’t copy those items anywhere
into the ‘site’ folder yourself, get Freeway to do that. There is an
action called Extra Resources that you can apply to something - for
example the Flash box on your page - and use to upload separate files
when you preview/publish/upload your efforts. These items can be made
to go into the Resources folder or be stored along with the page
itself.

Once this is done, just edit your master XML (etc.) files as normal
and leave Freeway to manage all file copying and uploading for you.

k

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3

K-

Thanks so much for your reply. I never realized how potentially limiting the “Resources” folder was until this project. Shame- Freeway is so good in other areas! There would be so much extra work that would need to be done with other files in order to make all of this work from the “Resources” folder that it would really kill the budget bottom line on this project. Looks like it’s back to Dreamweaver for this and others using Flash this way :frowning:

Thanks again for your reply.

TB

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4

If you’re willing to give up Freeway’s magical upload behavior, you can get what you’re looking for through a trick. Basically, you can fool Freeway into leaving your files where you put them, and publishing straight URLs to them where they lay. Follow these steps in a test document:

  1. Set up your document, make a page, publish locally.
  2. In the Site pane, add a folder named the way your slideshow expects. (And by the way, your slideshow shouldn’t care about these paths or pathnames – that’s just lazy programming on their part.)
  3. In the Finder, move your Flash and associated files into the folder you created in step 2 (on your Mac, in the folder Freeway created locally within the site folder).
  4. In Freeway, place your Flash elements on your page from the copy you made in step 3. (Yes, you are using elements from within the Site folder, and yes, this is warned about endlessly – often by me – as being a Very Bad Thing. Which it still is. For one thing, this breaks Freeway’s ability to upload the site entirely.)
  5. Publish again. View source, and you’ll see that the Flash movie that you want to come from /slideshow1/gallery.swf is in fact linked from there.
  6. Use Transmit or Fetch to mirror your site from your local folder to your server. As mentioned above, this trick breaks Freeway’s upload functionality.

You will see an extra Resources folder generated within your ‘slideshow1’ folder, but it’s harmless since it won’t contain anything besides (maybe) a _clear.gif that doesn’t get used elsewhere.

Walter

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5

Thanks, Walter! I will give this a try and keep everyone “posted”. I hope this saves me from having to go back to Dream-killer!

RE: “(And by the way, your slideshow shouldn’t care about these paths or pathnames — that’s just lazy programming on their part.)” - it’s not lazy programming- it’s that there are various different assets coming from various different people around the country who are contractually obligated to create things a certain way. It would just be too expensive to have them bill out for path changes in PHP/AS3/SQL. :slight_smile:

Thanks again to both of you. You guys rock.

TB

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6

Remember that there are options in FW: File>Document Setup>Output as to where FW will put these resources.

These are: Common Resource Folder, Separate Resource Folder and With HTML files so if you choose With HTML files you should get what you want.

And as Keith says Extra Resources (action) or Upload Stuff (action) can take care of the extraneous files for you.

David

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7

it’s not lazy programming- it’s that there are various different assets coming from various different people around the country who are contractually obligated to create things a certain way

Sorry, I wasn’t clear. I meant that it is possible to code a Flash player so that it looks at a relative offset from itself for a set of media, or accepts a configuration string in its parameters rather than requiring a particular hard-coded path.

So rather than needing your files to be in the same folder as the player, or in some other particular layout, you could allow the Flash movie to end up in the Resources folder along with all the other in-page resources, and the movie’s own resources could be located elsewhere.

Walter

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8

Thanks so much for your reply. I never realized how potentially
limiting the “Resources” folder was until this project.

Actually, all you have to do is work with Freeway. I use
Dreamweaver too, when I must, and I know it has its fair share of
issues (some not that dissimilar) that are frustrating.

If you want a ‘satellite’ file to be included along with the SWF file
then just use the Extra Resources action to ‘attach’ it to something
in your page and choose where it is to upload.

That is IT, that’s all you have to do. From then on, as far as you
need to be concerned about, you keep editing your original ‘extra’
files - the XML and whatever - and leave Freeway to do the fetching
and carrying.

I work with Flash-driven virtual reality panoramas, most of which
require external XML files, cubeface images, additional graphics for
buttons, and so on. The process of including these ‘extra resources’
may not seem that simple, but I propose that this is just because it
isn’t what you expected. :slight_smile:

Could it be made simpler in a future Freeway? Absolutely, and I hope
that this happens. But today’s method is actually very effective, and
it references your chosen original files, which is a Very Good
Thing when it comes to file and version management.

k

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