Can HTML affect embeded FLASH

Question

I am trying to find out if there is any way to have the HTML
send informaion to the embedded FLASH file. I need to change 2
peices of information on the FLASH file when it loads on the page
(based on the page it comes up on.) Is there a way to have the HTML
send a message to FLASH that says use "pic_2.jpg" or a way for
Flash to look into the HTML to find its directive. Better yet, is
there a way to let flash know what file it is within, and search
the XML file based on the parameter of location? Please
help.

Answer 1

Hi adjourney,
External images should work in the same way (via flashvars).
You can do
this in a two step process as you suggested, or directly via
the
embedding variables. I'll assume you want the simpler of the
two so you
would do something like this:
The HTML embedding code would look like this:
<object
classid="clsid:d27cdb6e-ae6d-11cf-96b8-444553540000"
codebase="
http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=9,0,0,0"
width="354" height="63" id="myFlashThing" align="middle">
<param name="allowScriptAccess" value="sameDomain" />
<param name="flashvars" value="imageFile=myImage.jpg"
/>
<param name="movie" value="flashFile.swf" /><param
name="quality"
value="high" /><param name="bgcolor" value="#cccccc"
/> <embed
src="flashFile.swf" quality="high" bgcolor="#cccccc"
width="354"
height="63" name="forumLogo" align="middle"
allowScriptAccess="sameDomain" allowFullScreen="false"
flashvars="imageFile=myImage.jpg"
type="application/x-shockwave-flash"
pluginspage="
http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer"
/>
Notice that you need to include the file name two...once as a
"param"
and then again in the "embed" tag. This is done to compensate
for
differences between FireFox/Mozilla browsers and
InternetExplorer-style
browsers.
In Flash, getting the image file name couldn't be easier. In
ActionScript 2.0, this is simply available as:
_level0.imageFile
In ActionScript 3.0, this is available as:
this.loaderInfo.parameters.imageFile from the class that's
associated
with the main movie clip (the Document class).
Now you simply take this value and use a loadMovie or Loader
instance to
get your image.
If you wanted to specify an XML file and then some identified
within it,
the flashvar would look something like this:
xmlFile=data.xml&offset=5
And this would be received as two separate values in Flash:
_level0.xmlFile and _level0.offset (and the associated ones
for AS 3).
Of course this is a bit of overkill...if you're specifying a
file and
then hardcoding a link within that file...you might as well
specify the
file right off the top. But I guess that's up to you.
Good luck,
Patrick
adjourney wrote:
> It seems that through this I can change the text
contents, but what if I wish
> to point to an external image, and want to load that jpg
into an empty movie
> clip within Flash. How do I do that? I suppose I could
assign a value to a
> variable (say "image" = 5) and then look up the XML to
pull the variable (grabs
> image definition 5, and pulls the referenced image). Am
I on the right track,
> or am I shooting beyond capability (of my own I am sure
- but what of Flash)?
>
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