Movie Gallery

**jadepearl** · 05-21-2008, 04:33 PM

Hi there!

I am new in flash, web development and design. But I am eager to learn as I fell in love with it. I am using Flash 8. Right now I am trying to do my very first website for my OGA. I am stuck and need your help and advice.

Firstly, I need to solve this problem:

I have created two "360 pano flash movies" and its in the SWF format. The movie can scroll to the right or to the left when you mouse over it.

Next, I want to do a movie gallery with thumbnails. When you click on the thumbnail, the 360 pano flash movie will appear in the placeholder (hope I got the term right) above it.
Here's an example of what I am thinking of - http://www.beautifulimages.biz/vt.html (Deluxe Tour) or http://www.virtualpix.co.uk/360-virt...y/gallery.html

However, when I tried creating a movie gallery and do this - File>Import and import my SWF onto stage, my swf files became bitmaps (pictures). So, what did I do wrong?

Secondly, if this is not possible, could I do something similiar with Dreamweaver MX 2004? Click on the thumbnail and the 360 pano flash movie will be played in a desinated table on the same page?

Any help or advice is appreciated.

Thank so much!

**Medyman** · 05-22-2008, 03:00 PM

However, when I tried creating a movie gallery and do this - File>Import and import my SWF onto stage, my swf files became bitmaps (pictures). So, what did I do wrong?

You can't directly import SWF files within the Flash IDE. Doing so breaks it up into it's constituent parts and strips the ActionScript. To be able to target another .swf file from a parent .swf file, like you're trying to do, you need to call it via ActionScript.

You would need to use the MovieClipLoader class to do this. Instead of explaining it, I'll point you towards a video tutorial (which might be easier to follow) made by Lee Brimelow and posted at gotoAndLearn(). The video is here.

Secondly, if this is not possible, could I do something similiar with Dreamweaver MX 2004? Click on the thumbnail and the 360 pano flash movie will be played in a desinated table on the same page?

Well, it is possible. But you could also do something like this via a whole host of methods -- Ajax, javascript with url segments, just javascript. The use of Dreamweaver makes no difference (execpt maybe making it harder to insert clean code) to the functionality available to do this. Dreamweaver supports javascript and HTML, so in theory, there should be no problems. However, Dreamweaver -- and others of its ilk -- have a habit of messing with code, so it's best to insert it directly into the markup with a basic text editor instead of going through the Dreamweaver inputs.

In any case, the simplest way to do this would be to do the following:

Add this to the <head> section:

Code:

<style text="text/css">
    .hide {
       display:none;
    }
</style>
<script type="text/javascript">
<!--
    function toggle_visibility(id) {
       var e = document.getElementById(id);
       if(e.style.display == 'block')
          e.style.display = 'none';
       else
          e.style.display = 'block';
    }
//-->
</script>

Add this to your html:

Code:

<div id="flash1" class="hide">
    <!-- Embed code for the first flash movie -->
</div>
<div id="flash2" class="hide">
    <!-- Embed code for the second flash movie -->
</div>
<img src="thumbnail1.jpg" onclick="toggle_visibility('flash1');">
<img src="thumbnail2.jpg" onclick="toggle_visibility('flash2');">

You could also use one of the Lightbox-esqe scripts to display a popup with the panoramic .swfs when you click a thumbnail.

**jadepearl** · 05-23-2008, 05:37 AM

Medyman - Thanks for your info and the javascript. Will try it out and see. Thanks once again!

**jadepearl** · 05-23-2008, 02:15 PM

Medyman - I was wondering if this can be done for my "360 pano flash movies"? Found this javascript here - http://www.hunlock.com/blogs/Everyth...ideo_Embedding
on How to make a video select list.

But since I am so new in all this, I don't understand it at all.
Could you please help me?

Thanks so much!

**Medyman** · 05-23-2008, 05:49 PM

Yeah, that's almost the same as what I suggested above (different code, same functionality).

You can use text instead of images with the code above. The important part is the onClick. You can add that within any tag and it'll work all the same. I included images because you mentioned thumbnails.

**jadepearl** · 05-24-2008, 04:09 AM

Hi Medyman,

Thanks for your help. Apologies for asking you more Qs. I am just like a baby when it comes to JS. I just don't understand the JS at the site which I gave you. Anyway, I tried the JS that you gave me. Am not sure what I did wrong. When I tried to view it in IE by clicking on the thumbnails, nothing happened. Please advice with thanks!

<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"
"http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/loose.dtd">
<html>
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1">
<title>Untitled Document</title>

<style text="text/css">
.hide {
display:none;
}
</style>
<script type="text/javascript">

</script>

</head>

<body>
<table width="687" border="0">
<tr>
<th width="171" scope="col"><div id="pool.swf" class="hide">

</div>
<div id="condo.swf" class="hide">

</div>
<p><img src="thumb01.gif" width="75" height="50" onclick="toggle_visibility('pool.swf');">
</p>
<p><img src="thumb02.gif" width="75" height="50" onclick="toggle_visibility('condo.swf');">
</p>
</th>
<th width="506" scope="col"> </th>
</tr>
</table>
<p> </p>
</body>
</html>

Secondly, how can I get the movie to be show in the table beside the thumbnails column?

Thank you so so much for your help and patient.
Hope to hear from you soon!

**Medyman** · 05-24-2008, 01:42 PM

You did everything right with that code. The reason you're not seeing anything is because you don't have anything inside the condo.swf and pool.swf divs.

Anything between  notation are HTML comments and won't show up in the browser. So enter some text, or embed your flash in that spot and you'll see that it works.

Also, to eliminate problems later on, you might want to drop the .swf in the div names. Just condo and pool should work fine for those.

**jadepearl** · 05-24-2008, 05:11 PM

Hi Medyman,

Thanks for your help! Hope I understood you correctly. Here is the code. However, its not working. Am I doing something wrong?

<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"
"http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/loose.dtd">
<html>
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1">
<title>Untitled Document</title>

<style text="text/css">
.hide {
display:none;
}
</style>
<script type="text/javascript">

</script>

</head>

<body>
<table width="687" border="0">
<tr>
<th width="171" scope="col"><div id="pool" class="hide">

</div>
<div id="condo" class="hide">

</div>
<p><img src="thumb01.gif" width="75" height="50" onclick="toggle_visibility('pool);">
</p>
<p><img src="thumb02.gif" width="75" height="50" onclick="toggle_visibility('condo);">
</p>
</th>
<th width="506" scope="col"> </th>
</tr>
</table>
<p> </p>
</body>
</html>

Thank you so so much for your help and patient.
Hope to hear from you soon!

**Medyman** · 05-25-2008, 05:06 PM

Not quite...

Try replacing

Code:

<div id="pool" class="hide">
<!-- play the pool movie-->
</div>
<div id="condo" class="hide">
<!-- play the condo movie-->
</div>

with

Code:

<div id="pool" class="hide">
POOL MOVIE HERE
</div>
<div id="condo" class="hide">
CONDO MOVIE HERE
</div>

Now, you should be able to see the script work

You'll need to embed the actual flash there, of course.

**jadepearl** · 05-26-2008, 05:11 AM

Hi Medyman!

Thanks so much for your patient and help. I am just so new and so loss. I have embeded my flash files with Dreamweaver MX 2004 and this is how the codes look like. Hope I doing it right.

<object classid="clsid

27CDB6E-AE6D-11cf-96B8-444553540000" codebase="http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=6,0,29,0" width="500" height="297">
<param name="movie" value="/images/pool.swf">
<param name="quality" value="high">
<embed src="/images/pool.swf" quality="high" pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="500" height="297"></embed>
</object>

Is this correct?

Thanks so much!