[Pro] Embedding flash audio player in freeway

Freeway
1

Hi there,

I am looking for help how to embed a flash audio player into my website that I am currently building with Pro. I am not experienced with scripting, and the posts that I read seem to always be a few steps ahead of my knowledge.

The issue is that the audio player in Freeway does not work on Firefox running on a Mac. I get an error message that you need to install Quicktime (which the Mac has!) to make the audio file running.

As a musician I need to be confident that every visitor can listen to my sound samples. Flash is the only alternative to me as 90% of computers run with Flash.

Freeway Pro has this excellent Flash movie integration. Strangely enough they do not offer the same for audio MP3s. So I need to do this manually now and I find it really difficult.

I have found a nice player ‘Dewplayer’. I don’t need anything fancy such as playlists. I only need a player with on/off/volume for one track.

I copied the SWF file and the MP3 file into my media folder where all images and files are stored for the website (please note that I have not yet uploaded my website to the folder).

Then they say I should:

Copy-paste and configure the HTML code with the right MP3 filepath.

(I was replacing the test.mp3 file with mine)

First of all - where do I copy this?

What else do I need to do? Shall I drag & drop the SWF file into my website that I build in Freeway?

I really got lost here. Some people here in Freeway Talk say I should add some codes into the page header. I don’t know where the header is. I think it is at PAGE>HTML Mark up.

Dear people on Freeway Talk, when you respond, please assume that I don’t know anything about codes and HTML. That’s the reason why I bought Freeway in the first place!

Dear people from Softpress, if you read this, please consider adding a flash audio integration similar to the one you do for movies.

Thank you ever so much for helping me.

Stefan

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2

On Jan 3, 2012, at 6:25 AM, Stefan D wrote:

Hi there,

I am looking for help how to embed a flash audio player into my website that I am currently building with Pro. I am not experienced with scripting, and the posts that I read seem to always be a few steps ahead of my knowledge.

The issue is that the audio player in Freeway does not work on Firefox running on a Mac. I get an error message that you need to install Quicktime (which the Mac has!) to make the audio file running.

The issue here is that the Firefox developers don’t want to support the MP3 patent by paying license fees, so they require either OGG or WAV audio.

As a musician I need to be confident that every visitor can listen to my sound samples. Flash is the only alternative to me as 90% of computers run with Flash.

You may want to keep looking, because 100% of iOS devices don’t support it.

Freeway Pro has this excellent Flash movie integration. Strangely enough they do not offer the same for audio MP3s. So I need to do this manually now and I find it really difficult.

I have found a nice player ‘Dewplayer’. I don’t need anything fancy such as playlists. I only need a player with on/off/volume for one track.

I copied the SWF file and the MP3 file into my media folder where all images and files are stored for the website (please note that I have not yet uploaded my website to the folder).

Then they say I should:

Copy-paste and configure the HTML code with the right MP3 filepath.

This is pertinent to a code editor environment. Here’s how you do that in Freeway.

(I was replacing the test.mp3 file with mine)

First of all - where do I copy this?

Locate the player SWF file in your Mac Finder and drag it onto your page in Freeway. Place it wherever you like. While the Flash movie is selected (handles showing on the corners and sides) use the Item / Extended option in the main menu to open up the attributes. Make sure the Embed tab is highlighted, and you should see an empty list of attributes. Click New to open up a line editor dialog, and enter the following:

  • Name: flashvars
  • Value: mp3=yourAudio.mp3

Click elsewhere on the page and choose Page / Page Actions / Upload Stuff from the main menu. (If you don’t have this installed, look on ActionsForge for it, it’s free, and installing Actions is one way to make Freeway more to your needs.) Make sure your Actions palette is open, then look for the section of the palette labeled Upload to Resources. Use the first picker in that section to choose your audio file. If you have more than one audio file playing on the same page, you only need one instance of the Upload Stuff Action on the page, and you can upload as many different files as there are pickers (up to ten).

Finally, upload your site using Freeway. All of the files will be put in their correct locations, and your audio file should play. If it doesn’t, then you may need to experiment with the flashvars attribute, changing it from mp3=yourAudio.mp3 to mp3=Resources/yourAudio.mp3 and see if that makes the difference.

Walter

What else do I need to do? Shall I drag & drop the SWF file into my website that I build in Freeway?

I really got lost here. Some people here in Freeway Talk say I should add some codes into the page header. I don’t know where the header is. I think it is at PAGE>HTML Mark up.

Dear people on Freeway Talk, when you respond, please assume that I don’t know anything about codes and HTML. That’s the reason why I bought Freeway in the first place!

Dear people from Softpress, if you read this, please consider adding a flash audio integration similar to the one you do for movies.

Thank you ever so much for helping me.

Stefan

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3

Dear Walter,

Thank you for your prompt and very helpful response!

It seemed very easy but then I was not able to install the upload stuff action to Freeway. Unfortunately, I did not find this action in Actionforge. I chose Upload Extra Ressources instead, the only action with a name ‘upload’ in the list. I opened it with Freeway and I got a message that the action was successfully installed. However, I do not find the action neither in the page actions nor the item actions.

When doing all the steps without the action I was not able to make the flashplayer work.

What shall I do about the action?

Thanks again!

Stefan

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4

Hi Walter,

Just one more note about my situation. I do not yet upload my website to my server. Currently, I am at the stage of building the website and I only preview in Firefox and Safari.

What does the upload action actually do? Can I integrate the flash player without the need to upload my site (yet).

Thank you
Stefan

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5

On Jan 3, 2012, at 8:49 AM, Stefan D wrote:

What shall I do about the action?

Have a look in the Action tool menu (click and hold on the cog icon in the tool bar) and see if it’s hiding there.

Actions come in three general flavors: Item-Actions (which you apply to anything you can draw on the page), Action-Items (subtle difference, which you actually draw on the page directly) and Page-Actions (which apply to the page).

If you find the Action in the cog menu, then choose that tool from the list and draw a little square with that tool somewhere on your page. It won’t appear in the final published site, it’s just there as a handle so you can select these extra files. Whenever it’s selected in your page, you will be able to do the rest of the steps I outlined earlier by looking in the Actions palette.

What does the upload action actually do? Can I integrate the flash player without the need to upload my site (yet).

All it does is place the file in the site documents hierarchy at the correct location. Freeway always works at one remove from the code and resources. When you publish your site, copies of the original files are made and placed in a local copy of the site on your Mac. When you upload from within Freeway, that local folder is synchronized with the server, such that any files on the server that were deleted locally are removed from the server, and any files that have been modified or created new are uploaded to the server.

If you’re still previewing locally in your browsers, then what you are seeing is a file:/// URL pointing to the local folder on your Mac.

Walter

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6

Extra Resources is an Item action so you have to select an item on your page and then go to the menu Item>Extra Resources to add it to that item.

David

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7

Hi Walter,

It works!! I managed to find the upload ressources action and then it was very easy. A great moment when I uploaded the website and heard my song on my start page.

If I want to adjust autoplay etc. I do all of this in the item/extended options fields?

Thanks again!
Stefan

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8

If I want to adjust autoplay etc. I do all of this in the item/extended options fields?

Yes - same as you added the flashvars

Name:autoplay

Value: true or false

D

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9

New Feature Request :

as a noob, i am finding that the oh-so-handy FW actions can be found in a bewildering number of places (three … so far).

what is not so great, is that all actions are not clearly labeled (to me). and that causes some confusion.

baffling as well is the difference between actions in the Tool Bar menu vs the Item Menu. i can find them, but i don’t know why i am looking in that particular spot.

if there are 3 kinds of actions, dang it, let’s put 'em in 3 places and better yet, toss peter a name with a definitive label. or even a name containing usage initials (ie : PA = page action). some form of indicator would be appropriate.

ex : the very excellent Page Action RPL (confusingly referred to in The Book also as a Folder Action) can apparently be an Item Action as well. and that’s great. (it works fantastic by the way.)
if an action works 2 ways, then put it 2 places, and give it 2 appropriate names. (yes, even if both labels both route to the same code)

i am dead certain the people who wrote FW can not get drunk enough to forget where/how/why the actions work and where/why they are stored in the cryptic places they are. but that is because they are professional, whereas some of us customers are definitely Not cut from the same cloth.

Walter just wrote this …

“It’s an output-only process of dumbing down the design document to suit the limitations of the publishing medium.”

very well said Walter, now if we can just apply that same logic to peter …

the forum is a blessing.
you guys are Great !

v.

peter build/fixes machines for a living. most of the time for ESL operators. they are smart and clever, but they don’t speak my language. so job success depends upon my making labels and control functions clear. these guys are my “customers”. when they fail to understand, it’s pretty much my fault.
ex : our reject rate dropped after i translated the welding machine control panels in Laotian. (fewer tech support calls to the shop floor too ! = more coffee time for peter)

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10

On 3 Jan 2012, at 17:06, Peter Vacco wrote:

i am dead certain the people who wrote FW can not get drunk enough to forget where/how/why the actions work and where/why they are stored in the cryptic places they are. but that is because they are professional, whereas some of us customers are definitely Not cut from the same cloth.

There is a kind of logic to the placement.

Actions that affect pages/folders.
Actions that affect items.
Actions that are place in text (inline).

Does that help to make things a little clearer?

=o)

Heather

Imagic Design * Good Design - No Compromise
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Twitter @Imagic-Design
T: 01634 864017

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11

I’ve done both - For Quicktime - the current rev of Firefox 9.0.1 plays Quicktime (though I may have already installed the plug-in). It’s very close to being the standard player format regardless of device or OS.

Like Walter mentions, Flash OTOH is not standard on many devices and may not have a bright future -

FWIW I tried Dewplayer for a recent site but I needed playlists and it was lacking documentation to get that done so I gave up. There are many paid players (many donationware ones have gone away) but all seem to use Flash and still may require a lot of work to install - and have awful appearances.

One I found instead - that I actually like and is easy to use is Yahoo Web Player -

I’m currently implementing it on a site in a Spawn New Window>Music Player role. Nice clean and simple IMO.

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12

I forgot to mention - I often just use Cyberduck if I need to add something to my site folder that’s not a Freeway item (as in the case of a SFW file).

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13

One I found instead - that I actually like and is easy to use is Yahoo Web Player

And there is an action for that.

http://www.freewayactions.com/test/yahoo-media-player/

D

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14

Hi all,

Thank you Walter and Dave for your support. I managed to use the dewplayer but I am not happy with the colours, so I am still looking for a suitable player (most are very difficult to adjust), I spent literally hours doing that.

However, when reading all comments in this discussion I start to doubt I really should use Flash.

With regards to the Quicktime plug-in (the standard freeway solution), it just doesn’t play on my Firefox on Mac. This doesn’t give me the confidence other people who are interested in my music will be able to listen to my song samples.

When researching on the Internet it seems HTML5 with a flash fallback option is the way to go. It also plays on Smartphones and iOS. However, this seems to be VERY complicated.

Do you know how to install HTML5 into my freeway website and what player would you recommend?

Thank you again! This is a great forum and it was very interesting to read what other people had to say.

Stefan

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15

And there is an action for that. (Yahoo Media Player)

Yes! Which makes it even more useful. :slight_smile:

Incidentally, Yahoo states they are working on eliminating Flash from the player in a future version.

Minimum requirements

We continually strive to make the player work just about anywhere, but we have some minimum requirements:
The Yahoo! WebPlayer relies on JavaScript to work. If your website doesn’t allow JavaScript, or if JavaScript is disabled in a user’s browser, the Yahoo! WebPlayer will not appear.
The Yahoo! WebPlayer currently uses some Flash, and therefore the user must have Flash installed for the player to work. We are working to remove this limitation sometime soon.

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16

With regards to the Quicktime plug-in (the standard freeway solution), it just doesn’t play on my Firefox on Mac. This doesn’t give me the confidence other people who are interested in my music will be able to listen to my song samples.

Are you saying you have installed the QT Plug-In and it still doesn’t work? Are you using FF 9xx? Are you sure you gave FF enough time to “load” the first encounter of Quicktime? I’ve found that for some reason it takes a little longer with the first one.

If you’re saying that people shouldn’t have to be required to add a Plug-In on their browser to use your site - your site will certainly not be the first or only one they encounter with the need for Quicktime.

The similar counter argument can be made against Flash as well. It doesn’t work on some devices and requires installing things to get it to work on others. :-/ There is also a whole market for Flash Blocker utilities - I’ve not seen a Quicktime blocker.

That being said - I have one website that is entirely dependent on Flash! It’s a slow hog, but has a certain look and feel (photography portfolio) I couldn’t’ achieve any other way given the resources I had at the time to build it.

Lastly, just to make sure you are looking at a site that has a correctly implemented Quicktime Player - here’s one of mine using SpawnNewWindow and Quicktime. http://lamusicworks.karenengelphotography.com/
Again, the first time you “play” in FF with the QT Plug-In, there is a short wait.

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17

Haven’t tried this one myself, but it appears to be a good place to start: HTML5 Video - ActionsForge I don’t know if there’s an equivalent thing for only audio.

Walter

On Jan 4, 2012, at 6:02 AM, Stefan D wrote:

Do you know how to install HTML5 into my freeway website and what player would you recommend?

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18

Hi all,

I have done some research and about 95% of computers have a flash plug in whilst 56% have a Quicktime plug in.

http://www.statowl.com/flash.php

This makes the choice easy.

I gave up the idea to integrate HTML5. I did more research and learned that this doesn’t make sense for audio files. Most fall back on using flash, it’s only a better system for video.

I have spent hours to find a flash player that fits the colour/design and eventually I have found a good website with plenty of flash players for little money:

However, most of these are with XML integration.

I don’t now how to install such player into Freeway. I am now getting really frustrated and maybe you guys know some help?

I receive instructions like these and how no idea at all how to apply these to Freeway:

*First copy the player.swf, playlist.xml and your mp3 files *
*into the folder containing your project. *
*Then all you have to do is copy this piece of code and paste *
*it into your actions layer in your flash project. *
Code:

var playerRequest:URLRequest = new URLRequest("player.swf");
var playerLoader:Loader = new Loader()
playerLoader.load(playerRequest);

addChild(playerLoader);
playerLoader.x = 280;
playerLoader.y = 140;

I am very close to giving up now. I might ask a professional scripter to integrate the flash player outside of Freeway.

Thank you
Stefan

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19

Hi,

I am using Dewplayer for music on my website, but I can’t seem to figure out how to get the player to automatically shuffle to the next song and repeat. In addition, the titles of the songs will not show up on the player.

Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

Ken

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20

Dont’ know if Stefan ever figured his out, but the documentation on the flash based Dewplayer is really lacking, and translating it further over into Freeway becomes even more cryptic.

Many of the Flashplayers use a “playlist.xml” file, but offer very little on how to implement it. Theoretically, when working correctly, at least some of these players will automatically add titles to your playlist transparently when you add audio files to your source folders. They are also supposed to be added to an on screen playlist as well. I never could figure it out, but then I’m no more than a novice.

FWIW, the implementation of http://webplayer.yahoo.com has become even better since I first looked at it - I’m really liking this one more and more. :slight_smile:

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