Screen resolution and published output

Question

Hi Gurus
I am recording content using 5.5 using a laptop with resolution of 1366 x 768.
Created a blank project with resolution of 1024 x 768.  When I publish this and then select Yes at the prompt "...Do you wish to view the output?" it requires quite a bit of scrolling down to see the Playback Control (as you might expect).
Created a blank project with resolution of 800 x 600.  When I publish this and then select Yes at at the prompt "...Do you wish to view the output?" it requires less scrolling down to see the Playback Control (as you might also expect).
Here's the bit that I don't get.  When I open the .swf files directly, they both "size" to fit the browser window and no scrolling is required to see the Playback Control.  The only difference, of course, is that the lower resolution capture has less screen area covered.  I am using IE7.
I had expected that the output when opening the .swf files would be the same as when I view after publish - kind of threw me there for a while.
Can someone kindly shed some light on this?
Thanks
Lynton123

Answer 1

Viewing the published files by launching the HTM page that has the SWF embedded will display the SWF at a fixed height and width that is set to the same height and width found in your project.
Launching the SWF directly by double-clicking it will cause it to be displayed in the web browser but it will maximise or shrink to whatever height or width is available.  This is just the way that SWFs work in browsers when not embedded in a HTM wrapper.
So why wouldn't you want it to always work this way?  Well, just launching the SWF is NOT going to give you all the functionality you need in many cases.  For example, any functionality like SCORM or right-mouse-click that depends on JavaScript will not be available to you unless you launch via the HTM file.  Secondly, resizing the SWF content to a different height/width ration than what it was created at will inevitably sacrifice some crispness in the output.  This is especially evident with software screenshots for tutorials and simulations.