The Flash Player allows you to incorporate Adobe®/Macromedia® Flash™ SWF content into your publication. The Flash content may be a local file or an Internet address pointing to a remote file. Some common types of Flash content include web site user interfaces, interactive online advertising and animation.


Note: In order to use the Flash Player object, you and your readers must have version 5 or higher of the Adobe/Macromedia Flash Player installed. The latest version of the Flash Player can be downloaded from www.adobe.com. Adobe/Macromedia claims that 97% of all Windows PCs have some version of Flash installed, so unless your readers are using very old equipment, this should not be an issue.


To add a Flash Player, use the mouse to draw a rectangle where you would like the object to appear. A File Selector will display, allowing you to select a SWF file. Once a file is selected, a Flash Player object will be added to your publication. You can modify the Flash Player by right clicking the object. The Flash Player Properties screen will be displayed, allowing you to define the object’s appearance and behavior.


The Flash Player Properties screen is divided into two sections indicated by the icon images on the left: General and Actions. To view the settings for a section, click the corresponding icon.


General

The Flash File or URL field contains the name of the Flash file to be played. You can select a local file (one located on your computer) by clicking the button to the right of this field; experienced authors can use the button to perform advanced file options or the button to replace the file name with a variable. If you select a local file, it will remain external until the compile stage when it will be bound inside the publication for distribution.



You can control how the Flash file will appear by selecting one of the following Display Mode options:


Actual Size

The Flash content will be displayed using the original dimensions specified by the file’s creator. If the content is larger than the space provided, it will be clipped at the object’s border.

Stretch

The content will be stretched to fit the dimensions of the Flash Player object. The content may appear distorted if the object’s dimensions are dramatically different than those of the content. To preserve the content’s original width to height proportions, select the Stretch - maintain aspect ratio option instead.

No Border

If the Flash author included a border as part of the content, you can use this option to eliminate it. Otherwise, No Border is the same as the Actual Size option above.


You can specify when the Flash content will start playing using the Animation Settings options. By default, the content will play Automatically when page is displayed. This is handy if you always want the content to play whenever its page is visible. Alternatively, you can have the content remain motionless and Wait for “FlashPlay” Action. The FlashPlay, FlashPause and FlashStop Actions can be used to control a Flash Player more precisely. Using these Actions, a Flash file can be started and stopped in response to a button click or as feedback for performing a task correctly. More information about these Actions can be found in here.


The Flash file may be set to repeat over and over by enabling the Loop option.


Enable the Auto-rewind option to restore the Flash file’s first frame when finished. Disabling Auto rewind will cause the last frame to remain onscreen after the Flash file is complete.


Note: Some Flash files do not distinguish between static and play modes. In this situation, Loop and Auto-rewind may be irrelevant and attempting to play or stop the file may have no effect.


You can allow or prevent readers from accessing the Flash file’s Context menu, which normally appears if you right click the Flash Player. The context menu provides readers with commands that allow them to modify the Flash file’s appearance. If you want to prevent readers from accessing these commands, turn this option off.


The Enable FSCommands option allows special VisualNEO Win Action commands embedded inside the Flash file to be executed. The Flash FSCommand feature is an advanced programming tool used by Flash authors to communicate with the host application - in this case VisualNEO Win. Using FSCommand, Flash authors can execute any of VisualNEO Win’s Action commands. Using FSCommand is beyond the scope of this manual, but experienced Flash authors need to direct the command at VisualNEO Win. For example:


on (release) {fscommand ("VisualNEO Win", "AlertBox \"A Message From VisualNEO Win!\" \"Hello there,|This is an Alert box From VisualNEO Win.\"");}


In addition to VisualNEO Win specific FSCommands, you can manually intercept FSCommands intended for other applications. To do this, define a special subroutine called ObjectName_FSCommand. Replace ObjectName with the name of your Flash Player object. Before calling the subroutine, VisualNEO Win will create two variables called [ObjectName.fsCommand] and [ObjectName.fsArgs] containing the information passed from the SWF file to VisualNEO Win. Again, replace ObjectName with the name of your Flash Player. The contents of these variables can be almost anything, so some knowledge of the SWF file will be helpful when deciding how to interpret this information. The example subroutine below displays an AlertBox in response to FSCommands:


:Flash1_FSCommand
  AlertBox "FSCommand" "[Flash1.fsCommand], [Flash1.fsArgs]"
Return


See Book Properties > Actions for more information on creating subroutines.


Enable the Use background color option if you want the Flash Player to use the object’s Fill Color (selected from the Style Palette) instead of the background color stored inside the Flash file.


Enabling the Embed Flash Player option will include a copy of the Flash Player (flash.ocx) installed on your PC inside  the compiled publication. Later if someone viewing your publication does not have a Flash Player installed, VisualNEO Win will use the compiled internal player to display SWF files.


Actions

The Flash Player supports the following Action Events: Load Complete, Finished Playing and Canceled. Click the appropriate tab at the bottom of the Action Editor to create or edit Actions for the events you want to control. See Understanding Actions and Variables and Action Command Reference for a complete discussion of the Action Editor and Action Commands.


Note: The Finished Playing Action will be ignored if the Loop option is enabled.