I have a flash video on a site of mine that was originally created with Freeway pro 5 and all was working well. Earlier today I deleted a couple pages from the site that were no longer needed using 5.5 and created a proper 301 .htaccess file on the server.
After uploading, it became immediately apparent that 5.5 had removed the custom player skin for the Flash movie that was previously in place even though I hadn’t touched that aspect of the site. To work out what was happening I had to open a previously saved version of the site in version 5 where it showed the option to place the player underneath the video. In 5.5 there was initially no skin at all and then no option I could see to place it underneath.
To resolve the situation quickly I uploaded the site again using the old version and later on managed to locate the custom player file and get it to work in 5.5 with some prodding for want of a more technical term. The whole action window for Flash is very different though and I wonder if Softpress could offer us some guidance before others find themselves confused and lost if the same thing happens.
You’ll need to use the old version of the Action for the time being. I’ll stick it up on ActionsForge when I get a second, to get it yourself from Freeway 5.4.2 and install it do the following:
Locate Freeway 5.4.2 on your machine
With it selected, Control-click and choose Show Package Contents
Double click the file at Contents/SharedSupport/Actions/FAST/iPhone Suite.fwactionb
Okay the “You are about to install Freeway Actions” dialog
Freeway may try and use the newer version, if so, go to the Edit>Acitons dialog and untick the FLV Player Action in the Application section and tick the one in the User section.
Sorry for the inconvenience!
Joe
On 19 Aug 2010, at 14:05, Ashley wrote:
I have a flash video on a site of mine that was originally created with Freeway pro 5 and all was working well. Earlier today I deleted a couple pages from the site that were no longer needed using 5.5 and created a proper 301 .htaccess file on the server.
After uploading, it became immediately apparent that 5.5 had removed the custom player skin for the Flash movie that was previously in place even though I hadn’t touched that aspect of the site. To work out what was happening I had to open a previously saved version of the site in version 5 where it showed the option to place the player underneath the video. In 5.5 there was initially no skin at all and then no option I could see to place it underneath.
To resolve the situation quickly I uploaded the site again using the old version and later on managed to locate the custom player file and get it to work in 5.5 with some prodding for want of a more technical term. The whole action window for Flash is very different though and I wonder if Softpress could offer us some guidance before others find themselves confused and lost if the same thing happens.
Ok, the original FLV Player Action can be downloaded here. If the new version causes problems for your existing player then install and use this until we find a solution.
You’ll need to use the old version of the Action for the time being. I’ll stick it up on ActionsForge when I get a second, to get it yourself from Freeway 5.4.2 and install it do the following:
Locate Freeway 5.4.2 on your machine
With it selected, Control-click and choose Show Package Contents
Double click the file at Contents/SharedSupport/Actions/FAST/iPhone Suite.fwactionb
Okay the “You are about to install Freeway Actions” dialog
Freeway may try and use the newer version, if so, go to the Edit>Acitons dialog and untick the FLV Player Action in the Application section and tick the one in the User section.
Sorry for the inconvenience!
Joe
On 19 Aug 2010, at 14:05, Ashley wrote:
I have a flash video on a site of mine that was originally created with Freeway pro 5 and all was working well. Earlier today I deleted a couple pages from the site that were no longer needed using 5.5 and created a proper 301 .htaccess file on the server.
After uploading, it became immediately apparent that 5.5 had removed the custom player skin for the Flash movie that was previously in place even though I hadn’t touched that aspect of the site. To work out what was happening I had to open a previously saved version of the site in version 5 where it showed the option to place the player underneath the video. In 5.5 there was initially no skin at all and then no option I could see to place it underneath.
To resolve the situation quickly I uploaded the site again using the old version and later on managed to locate the custom player file and get it to work in 5.5 with some prodding for want of a more technical term. The whole action window for Flash is very different though and I wonder if Softpress could offer us some guidance before others find themselves confused and lost if the same thing happens.
Actually it seemed to work with the updated version in 5.5 but I had to reselect the custom player and then I pressed something or other, after which it all appeared correctly but I had already completed the upload properly by this stage using Freeway 5.
The custom player skin was supplied to me by somebody else and I really have no knowledge of how these things work but it did seem that the player skin supplied by Freeway wasn’t going underneath the video as I wanted with the new action and I couldn’t see an obvious option to make it happen.
You have stated elsewhere that this bug has been fixed internally (in September) Do you know when the fix will be released to us paying customers? I’m running 5.5.2. Before you say - I’ve tried .fwactionb that doesn’t work either, possibly something I’m doing wrong but then why should I be tasked with making it work when the Software is advertised to work from the box. Fix please. In the meantime I’ll keep fiddling and causing conflicts between old and new actions until, one day, like your other users are finding, it might suddenly work! Fingers crossed - eh.
All problems should be fixed in 5.5.2. Make sure the version number of the Action (in the bottom right of the Actions palette) is 2.1. If it isn’t then go to the Edit Menu and choose Actions to open a dialog that will let you enable and disable Actions. Disable the iPhone Suite Actions in the User section and enable the iPhone Suite Actions in the Application section.
If you are already using 2.1, or 2.1 still doesn’t work, can you let me know what isn’t working (i.e. transparency, iPhone compatible versions).
Joe
On 29 Oct 2010, at 14:41, Dave Kirkwood wrote:
Hi Joe,
You have stated elsewhere that this bug has been fixed internally (in September) Do you know when the fix will be released to us paying customers? I’m running 5.5.2. Before you say - I’ve tried .fwactionb that doesn’t work either, possibly something I’m doing wrong but then why should I be tasked with making it work when the Software is advertised to work from the box. Fix please. In the meantime I’ll keep fiddling and causing conflicts between old and new actions until, one day, like your other users are finding, it might suddenly work! Fingers crossed - eh.
I actually redesigned a website last week with 5.5 that was almost identical to the original, however, I wanted to do it this time making use of the relative page layout action, since I was never happy using the box model.
I was able to get the flash video working correctly once I selected the old custom player. The problem I had was in finding the right size for the item itself, which led to a poor quality picture with jagged edges. I had reference to the old movie where I could check the previously used size dimensions for the flash movie including player but somehow it was wrong with the new action and after half an hour of guessing without success I finally did a copy & paste from the old version, which fortunately worked. I don’t understand though why this is so hit & miss inside Freeway. Is there an easy way to discover the correct size for Flash movies?
Hi Ashley, the new version should give you the original dimensions in the live preview, along with a recommended height based on the current width of the item and a live preview so you can see how it looks before publishing.
The old version would try and squeeze any movie, regardless of aspect ratio, into a 4:3 SWF. If anything, that’s the version that would be off in terms of dimensions
Joe
On 30 Oct 2010, at 13:28, Ashley wrote:
I actually redesigned a website last week with 5.5 that was almost identical to the original, however, I wanted to do it this time making use of the relative page layout action, since I was never happy using the box model.
I was able to get the flash video working correctly once I selected the old custom player. The problem I had was in finding the right size for the item itself, which led to a poor quality picture with jagged edges. I had reference to the old movie where I could check the previously used size dimensions for the flash movie including player but somehow it was wrong with the new action and after half an hour of guessing without success I finally did a copy & paste from the old version, which fortunately worked. I don’t understand though why this is so hit & miss inside Freeway. Is there an easy way to discover the correct size for Flash movies?
With the old version I had to play around to guess the right dimensions.The original movie including the player underneath was found to achieve best quality at 380x280.
To test this out again I deleted the movie and inserted a new Flash movie, but there was no indication of the correct size and to make matters worse it made a complete dogs dinner of the overall page design throwing all the other elements out of place. I looked at the actions palette and found this was version 2.0. I’ve just spent the last 20 minutes searching for 2.1 but I can’t seem to find it anywhere.
I’d like to test this out see how it works in the latest version of Freeway. When we upgrade Freeway shouldn’t it also upgrade the actions?
OK, I’ve discovered I was actually running Freeway 5.5.1 but when I checked for updates it said none were available. I downloaded the 5.5.2 update from Softpress and sure enough my flv player action has been updated to 2.1 now but the same problems I mentioned before still exist. I am not seeing any of the information you mention like recommended height etc. when applying the action or at any point in the inspector or in Preview mode.
Hm, what version of Flash and what operating system are you using? Can you send your file into support so they can see what this layout problem is please?
Joe
On 30 Oct 2010, at 21:07, Ashley wrote:
OK, I’ve discovered I was actually running Freeway 5.5.1 but when I checked for updates it said none were available. I downloaded the 5.5.2 update from Softpress and sure enough my flv player action has been updated to 2.1 now but the same problems I mentioned before still exist. I am not seeing any of the information you mention like recommended height etc. when applying the action or at any point in the inspector or in Preview mode.
I don’t have Flash myself. All I did was to send a QuickTime file to a friend who has Flash and he sent back a converted FLV with an SWF custom player file. I’ve just inserted them into Freeway.
Hmm, having Flash installed might make it easier to see how things are going to end up. Anyway, I see this in Freeway when Flash isn’t installed: Skitch | Evernote
Also, you can now import h264 encoded QuickTime files directly into the FLV Player Action.
Joe
On 1 Nov 2010, at 13:34, Ashley wrote:
I don’t have Flash myself. All I did was to send a QuickTime file to a friend who has Flash and he sent back a converted FLV with an SWF custom player file. I’ve just inserted them into Freeway.
Sorry, I got my wires crossed when we were talking about Flash. I have the latest Flash player 10.1 installed and I can view Flash all over the internet including on my own site. I just meant that I don’t have the application Flash from Adobe for creating Flash based, which is why I asked my friend to convert the file for me, since he has years of experience working with Flash. I am also running OS X 10.6.4.
Ok, and you don’t see anything like my screenshot?
Joe
On 1 Nov 2010, at 14:11, Ashley wrote:
Sorry, I got my wires crossed when we were talking about Flash. I have the latest Flash player 10.1 installed and I can view Flash all over the internet including on my own site. I just meant that I don’t have the application Flash from Adobe for creating Flash based, which is why I asked my friend to convert the file for me, since he has years of experience working with Flash. I am also running OS X 10.6.4.
No I am seeing it like in the link below. Actually since installing the latest version of Freeway it has actually messed up my existing flash movie by the look of it.
The only way I could get this to work before in 5.5 was through copy & paste from the old version of the site done in Freeway Pro 5, but now looking at it in Preview mode suddenly the size no longer works and you can see the bottom of the player has been cropped, while the image quality looks jagged. Luckily I have a good version loaded onto the actual site. This has happened since upgrading over the weekend from 5.5.1 to 5.5.2.
