Adding Flash to your site

A Flash file is an interactive animation (common file extension for Flash files is .swf, though other extensions are used too). You can create them on your own computer and then add them to a website for a little more of an exciting or dynamic experience for your visitors. Please note that they will have to Flash installed on their computer to be able to see the animations.

Adding a flash file to your Wild Apricot site consists of two steps:

1. Upload flash file using the File Manager (suggestion: create a folder called "flash" for your flash files)

2. Edit your page HTML and insert the following: (see Inserting HTML)

Please be sure to do the following Replace "/resources/flash/myFlash.swf" with the full path (url) to your flash file (there are two occurrences) Change the width and height parameters accordingly to match your flash dimensions (two occurrences) make sure you correctly specify the url to your flash file, it will start with "/resources" and then be followed with the folder (if applicable) and file name

Optional settings

The following attributes are optional when defining the object and/or embed tags. For an object, all attributes are defined in param tags unless otherwise specified. When inserting a new attribute please look at the quality attribute in the code above. You should add a new PARAM tag line and a new attribute to the OBJECT tag.

• id (attribute for object, object only) - Identifies the flash file to the host environment (eg the web browser) so that it can be referenced using a scripting language.
• name (embed only) - flash file name. Identifies the flash file to the host environment (a web browser, typically) so that it can be referenced using a scripting language such as JavaScript or VBScript.
• swliveconnect - Possible values: true, false. Specifies whether the browser should start Java when loading the Flash Player for the first time. The default value is false if this attribute is omitted. If you use JavaScript and Flash on the same page, Java must be running for the FSCommand to work.
• play - Possible values: true, false. Specifies whether the flash file begins playing immediately on loading in the browser. The default value is true if this attribute is omitted.
• loop - Possible values: true, false. Specifies whether the flash file repeats indefinitely or stops when it reaches the last frame. The default value is true if this attribute is omitted.
• menu - Possible values: true, false.
  • true displays the full menu, allowing the user a variety of options to enhance or control playback.
  • false displays a menu that contains only the Settings option and the About Flash option.
• quality - Possible values: low, high, autolow, autohigh, best.** low favors playback speed over appearance and never uses anti-aliasing.
  • autolow emphasizes speed at first but improves appearance whenever possible. Playback begins with anti-aliasing turned off. If the Flash Player detects that the processor can handle it, anti-aliasing is turned on.
  • autohigh emphasizes playback speed and appearance equally at first but sacrifices appearance for playback speed if necessary. Playback begins with anti-aliasing turned on. If the actual frame rate drops below the specified frame rate, anti-aliasing is turned off to improve playback speed. Use this setting to emulate the View > Antialias setting in Flash.
  • medium applies some anti-aliasing and does not smooth bitmaps. It produces a better quality than the Low setting, but lower quality than the High setting.
  • high favors appearance over playback speed and always applies anti-aliasing. If the flash file does not contain animation, bitmaps are smoothed; if the flash file has animation, bitmaps are not smoothed.
  • best provides the best display quality and does not consider playback speed. All output is anti-aliased and all bitmaps are smoothed.
• scale - Possible values: showall, noborder, exactfit.
  • default (showall) makes the entire flash file visible in the specified area without distortion, while maintaining the original aspect ratio of the flash file. Borders may appear on two sides of the flash file.
  • noorder scales the flash file to fill the specified area, without distortion but possibly with some cropping, while maintaining the original aspect ratio of the flash file.
  • exactfit makes the entire flash file visible in the specified area without trying to preserve the original aspect ratio. Distortion may occur.
• align (attribute for Object) - Possible values: l, t, r, b.
  • Default centers the flash file in the browser window and crops edges if the browser window is smaller than the flash file.
  • l (left), r (right), t (top), and b (bottom) align the flash file along the corresponding edge of the browser window and crop the remaining three sides as needed.
• salign - Possible values: l, t, r, b, tl, tr, bl, br.
  • l, r, t, and b align the flash file along the left, right, top or bottom edge, respectively, of the browser window and crop the remaining three sides as needed.
  • tl and tr align the flash file to the top left and top right corner, respectively, of the browser window and crop the bottom and remaining right or left side as needed.
  • bl and br align the flash file to the bottom left and bottom right corner, respectively, of the browser window and crop the top and remaining right or left side as needed.
• wmode - Possible values: window, opaque, transparent. Sets the Window Mode property of the flash file for transparency, layering, and positioning in the browser.
  • window - flash file plays in its own rectangular window on a web page.
  • opaque - the flash file hides everything on the page behind it.
  • transparent - the background of the HTML page shows through all transparent portions of the flash file, this may slow animation performance.
• bgcolor - [hexadecimal RGB value] in the format #RRGGBB . Specifies the background color of the flash file. Use this attribute to override the background color setting specified in the Flash file. This attribute does not affect the background color of the HTML page.
• base - . or [base directory] or [URL]. Specifies the base directory or URL used to resolve all relative path statements in the Flash Player flash file. This attribute is helpful when your Flash Player files are kept in a different directory from your other files.
• flashvars - Possible values: variable to pass to Flash Player. Requires Macromedia Flash Player 6 or later.
  • Used to send root level variables to the flash file. The format of the string is a set of name=value combinations separated by '&'.
  • Browsers will support string sizes of up to 64KB (65535 bytes) in length.

Know problems with Flash

In order to play a flash file in the browser you need to install flash add-on. There are two add-ons:

• Adobe Flash Player
• HTML5 - supported only by WebKit browsers such as Safari and Chrome.

Adobe Flash Player does not support Windows 64x, therefore the Flash file will not be plaid in Internet Explorer. As a workaround, it is possible to install Internet Explorer 32x on Windows 64x.