Flash menu : odd situation please help

Hello Dynamics :)

I have a flash menu setup that loads the xml file in a header with joomla.

-In internet Explorer, if I visit the site from the intro, my flash menu is working

working means : I can click the links in the menu, and pages load accordingly.


-I close IE, and visit the site directly, without passing through the intro, the flash menu buttons seem to be blocked..when I can click the buttons, nothing loads...it looks like buttons are disabled.

-The intro is in an independant folder on the server.

I have tried several workarounds, I really don't understand

can somebody please shed some light on this ?
Any suggestions ?

site : http://www.mscalixte.qc.ca

bypassing the intro: http://www.mscalixte.qc.ca/site


thanks a million
Sandra :)

Sandra,

I am brand new to the forum, though, I am not a professional by any regard when it comes to HTML, but I have built a few websites that's used flash. I looked at the source that bypasses the intro and I looked at the source after I entered your site after viewing the intro. Immediately I noticed something that may or may not be the problem.

Right now, the way you have it set up, when you enter your site through the intro, it is pointing to a naked domain, another words it doesn't have "www" in front of the domain name and looking at the source for the main page (http://mscalixte.qc.ca/site/) every link that is referenced in there doesn't have the "www" in front of the link. I noticed this throughout the entire source page.

When entering the main page (http://www.mscalixte.qc.ca/site/) without going through the intro, looking at the source, nearly every link has "www", except for a few (line 136 for example--I didn't review the entire source page BTW).

Now when I remove the "www." and hit enter, your site works as it should.

I am not sure what would be the best course of action, but if I was designing your site, I would ensure each and every referenced link was prefaced with the "www.". This is my tactic. However, for the sake of having to go through everything, I would look into forcing your site to redirect from http://www.mscalixte.qc.ca/site/ to http://mscalixte.qc.ca/site/ using .htaccess or whatever your server allows. I would also do the same for the intro page (http://www.mscalixte.qc.ca/ --->>>http://mscalixte.qc.ca/)

Do a Google search on "redirect www to non www" and you will be presented with lots of information. Alternatively, depending on who your web host is (such as Powweb), they may have a write-up already on how to force your site to a non-www.

Since your site works perfectly on a "naked" domain, I would try the redirect first.

I hope you are able to get this fixed without further problems. It seems like this is what is creating the issue at hand.

You have designed a very good site and I love the music. Best of luck to you.

Regards,

Josh

I was still "researching" before seeing Josh's response -- which may make more sense. I was thinking "relative path" problem.
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Your site is very attractive (artwork execution), but putting your basic navigation in a Flash SWF is bad practiice if you also care about non-Flash viewers. Keeing all related files in same folder avoids problems of relative paths.

Not quite the answer, but see
http://kb2.adobe.com/cps/041/tn_04157.html
"Relative URLs can be referenced incorrectly when the SWF file and the HTML file are in different locations. "
Old _root reference http://help.adobe.com/en_US/Flash/10...4B32B012D.html
OLD uses loadMovie()
http://www.actionscript.org/forums/s....php3?t=117602

Quote:

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Relative path to SWF in loadMovie() is relative to HTML page not the parent SWF

- Problem: a relative path URL defined in a loadMovie() script is relative to the HTML page containing the parent SWF, not the parent SWF of loaded SWF...

- This means that, if you want the SWFs to work in Flash Player as well as the in the HTML page (don't we all?!), the parent SWF must be in the same directory as the HTML page that contains it. The problem with this is that you can't embed that parent SWF from other HTML pages in different directories without breaking the relative links to the child SWFs.

Solutions??

- Just have one HTML page holding the parent SWF that loads all the children, but this is very limiting and in the job I'm on now - not possible

- You could have Absolute links to your child SWFs, but Best Practice of Actionscript advises against it.

- You could have multiple copies of the parent and child SWFs for each HTML page, even if they all look and work the same, with relative links to the child SWFs appropriate for each HTML page. You could re-save the one set of SWFs and make sure that the directory structure is the same for each HTML page so the loadMovie URLs don't have to be changed for each parent SWF - but that's just annoying. There must be a better way...

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Was trying to find something I once read among old Flash notes.

At first thought it might have been ActionScript 3.0: Visual Quick Start Guide Chap. 15 HTTP Requests and External Communication security issue:

Quote:

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"...Because SWF runs locally on computer, Flash Player considers this a security threat. SWF on computer must be added to a list of trusted locations for Flash Player." [Click Settings button for Adobe Flash Player Setting Manager Web Page.]

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Or perhaps Colin Mook's Essential ActionScript 3.0 Chap. 15 Security
Flash restricts load, access and interaction with other SWF and HTML files.

Quote:

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"Sandbox security" assigned to SWFs opened by or loaded into Player .... Click flash.system.Security.sandbox Type value: remote, local-with-file-system, local-with-networking, or local-trusted. SWF Web content has "remote" restriction.

Different restrictions apply to different operations. The method used to load resources (not resource file type) is what makes an external "loading content" operation -- e.g., using Loader class's instance method load() is a "loading content" operation, but loading same JPEG over a binary socket or using URLLoader class's load() is not.

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Mook's Chap. 21 Loading External Display Assets is probably more on target:

Quote:

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Flash Player's system for resolving relative URLs depends on how Flash Player is launched ... whether URL is relative to Web page or SWF file.

Avoid such issues by storing all HTML, SWF and asset files in same directory.

First SWF opened by Player is "Stage owner" -- even if it is removed.
For example, if SlideShow.swf is opened directly in Player and then loads Viewer.swf, all relative URLs in Viewer.swf would be relative to SlideShow.swf (the "Stage owner"). If SlideShow.swf were viewed via a Web page, all relative URLs in Viewer.swf would be relative to the Web page.

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[Sic. These are abstracted notes, not direct quotes.]