Adding Company Name to Flash Website

Question

Hi Everyone,
I have a question about Flash CS3. When I search for my
website on Internet Explorer, the web site link comes up, but
instead of the link stating "FranchelleDesigns", it says
"Index". I tried adding my Company name to Action Script, but
it does not work, it just gives a code error under the
website link.
Can anyone assist?
Thanks in advance for your help!

Answer 1

Contref,
I apologize for that outburst. It was uncalled for and
unprofessional of me. Please accept my apology. I will try to
explain it another was so you might understand.
I think your problem stems from a lack of understanding of
the publishing process, not from an ignorance of the Flash
development environment. That said, let me see if I can give you
the 40,000 foot perspective.
When working in a development environment, you work on what
we call LOCAL FILES. These are files that reside on your computer
or local network. When you have finished development (and sometimes
before you finish) you do what's called PUBLISHING your documents.
(Note that this is different than the Flash menu option Publish -
that only compiles the FLA file into a SWF file and creates the
HTML file). By this we generally mean you upload these files to
some web server somewhere on the internet. To make this perfectly
clear, this means you will have two copies of every file - one on
your computer, and one on the internet server. When you edit the
file on your computer and save it, unless the file is locked for
some reason, there is no reasonable way that file will 'roll back'
to a previous version without you being told it is happening. The
file could be set to READ ONLY, which would prevent you from saving
your changes, but again, you would be told that with a pop-up box.
Hopefully this explains why some of us are so confused as to your
problem.
One other possible problem I can see happening is that you
are editing the source that you get from the internet (like in your
browser going to View => Source" and editing that file, then
saving it and refreshing the page. What you would have to
understand in this case is that every time you view the source and
change it, you are viewing what's on the web server and saving your
changes to your local computer. This is fine except that you have
never uploaded the modified code to the web server and, thus, will
NEVER see the changes you have made. Please note that all of this
is done in applications outside of Flash and really doesn't have a
place in these forums, but that's OK. We will still help you out.
There are two ways to get pages to a web server. Some hosting
services offer a web-based file upload application (iX Webhosting
and MySpace photos are good examples of this). The other method is
to use an FTP (File Transfer Protocol) program. Examples of this
are CuteFTP, CoreFTP - but there are hundreds of these applications
that you can use. I've only named two.
Now, there are four files that encompass the Flash file:
1. The FLA file. This is the un-compiled, native Flash
document - the one you do all your editing to.
2. The SWF file. This is the compiled Flash file that will be
uploaded (published) to the web server.
3. AC_RunActiveContent.js. This is a file that must be placed
on your web server along with the SWF and HTML files. This is a
script file that examines the users computer to determine which
version of Flash Player has been loaded onto the users computer.
4. The HTML file. This is the main 'page' that holds your SWF
file. It also contains what is called Meta Data - of which the
title of the page is a part and contained withing the <TITLE>
</TITLE> tags.
Now that I've covered the content, let's look at the general
steps required to publish your page:
1. Create your flash file and save it to your hard drive.
2. Select Publish from the File Menu - this creates the SWF
and HTML files and puts a copy of the AC_RunActiveContent.js in the
directory with those other two files.
3. Use a text editor like Notepad or UltraEdit to open the
HTML file. This file will be in the same directory as your FLA and
SWF files and will have the same name. Example: if your named your
FLA file "Home.FLA", you will also see "Home.SWF" and "Home.HTML"
4. Add the line <TITLE>My Page Title</TITLE> to
the HTML file just below the <HEAD> tag.
5. Save the file and exit your text editor.
6. Open the web servers file transfer application OR your FTP
application and log into your server.
7. Upload the HTML, SWF and JS files to the server (making
sure they are in the proper directories).
8. Use your browser to view the web site.
I think that is as plain and as detailed as I can possible
answer your question. If that doesn't solve your problem, you need
a better man than me. Again, I apologize for my outburst.