Rotating .FLV files within a movie

Question

Hi all,
I'm new to Flash 8 and mostly interested in the IMporting and
linking to .flv files within a .swf movie. My question is:
Is there a way to have the .swf file randomly rotate a number
of .flv files? In other words - like being able to upload several
.flvs into a directory and the .swf randomly selects and plays one
of them per page refresh?
I hope I was clear - I'm not up on the lingo yet.
Thanks
Dodge

Answer 1

Dodge,
> I would be interested in knowing the method, David.
Happy to oblige.
> I'm puzzled that you chose to exclude this information
> from your reply. Have I broken a posting rule breached
> an ettiquette of some sort?
Dodge, you're absolutely fine. You haven't done a thing
wrong. I was
just being silly. I'm in here almost every day, and sometimes
I get a
chuckle out of answering exactly the question asked. I should
have been
more clear that I was teasing. Honestly, my apologies if I
caused any
headache.
So let's take a look at your goal. You have x-number of
external FLVs
available and would like your SWF file to choose one of those
at random to
display it. We can break this goal down into two parts: a)
loading
external FLV files and b) choosing an item randomly from a
list. Let's
start with the second part -- which you can use, by the way,
to choose
randomly from a group of JPGs, too, or even to jump to a
random frame label.
You'll need a bit of ActionScript for this, but I'll try to
make it
straightfoward. One of the many objects in ActionScript is
something called
an array. An array is essentially a list. Objects are defined
by something
called classes, which dictate the functionality of the object
in question.
The Array class defines all array objects, and we can produce
one to meet
our needs by using the following code. Put this in frame 1 of
your main
timeline.
var videos:Array = new Array();
The term var creates a variable. Our variable is arbitrarily
named
videos, of type Array. We use the expression "new Array()" to
produce an
Array instance (an object). The videos variable basically
points to this
object -- thing of it as your "handle".
The Array class defines a number of methods (things the
object can do).
Because our object is an instance of Array, our object has
available to it
all the methods described in the Array class. (You can read
about all these
classes in the ActionScript Language Reference, by the way --
excellent
reading!)
One of the methods is called Array.push(), which "pushes"
something into
the array.
videos.push("uno.flv");
videos.push("dos.flv");
videos.push("tres.flv");
So ... by invoking Array.push() on our object, we have added
the names
of three FLV files to the first three "slots" of our list.
These can be
retrieved later by uses square brackets and the desired slot
number. Arrays
start at zero, so the first element, uno.flv, lives here ...
videos[0];
... the second lives here ...
videos[1];
... and so on.
Next, we'll use the Math.random() method to generate a
random number
between zero and however many elements are in our array.
We'll get that
upper limit by using the Array.length property. Properties
describe the
characteristics of an object.
In our case, so far, videos.length returns 3, since there
are three
elements in our array.
Math.random() returns a random decimal number between zero
and one, so
if we multiply that by videos.length, then round the number
down to the
nearest integer, we'll have a random number that will choose
one of the
three slots in our array. To round down, we'll use the
Math.floor() method.
We'll store our chosen number in another variable.
var randomNum:Number = Math.floor(Math.random() *
videos.length);
This always returns either 0, 1, or 2, because of the number
of elements
in our array.
Now we can use the number stored in randomNum to access a
particular FLV
name.
videos[randomNum];
Makes sense, right?
Now, there are several ways to load an external FLV. The way
I
prefer -- though, of course, your needs may differ -- is to
forego any of
the Media playing UI Components and use a Video object as
described here ...
http://www.quip.net/blog/2006/flash/how-to-load-external-video
.. then use the expression videos[randomNum] (which returns a
string;
namely, the name of an FLV file) to describe the desired FLV.
Give this a shot and write back with specific questions, if
you have
any. The ease of this approach depends entirely on your
comfort level with
programming, so if you run into snags, don't hesitate to come
back.
I tease, but I don't bite.
David
stiller (at) quip (dot) net
Dev essays:
http://www.quip.net/blog/
"Luck is the residue of good design."