May 30, 2001 - Playing a Flash Movie | WebReference

May 30, 2001 - Playing a Flash Movie

Yehuda Shiran May 30, 2001
Playing a Flash Movie
Tips: May 2001

Yehuda Shiran, Ph.D.
Doc JavaScript

In some of your applications you may need to use Flash movies and JavaScript directly, without any prepackaged APIs such as FlashSound JavaScript API. You will enjoy more features, methods, and properties, but you'll have to take care of all the tiny details that are taken for granted when using FlashSound API, for example.

One of the "tiny" details is embedding the Flash object. The JavaScript file flashmoviecheck.js does exactly this, and other stuff. It also checks for Flash plug-ins, and minimum player version.

The following links demonstrate the Play() and Rewind() methods. The Play() method starts playing the track from beginning. The Rewind() method returns the movie to its initial position and stops the playback. You need to invoke Play() after Rewind(), as Rewind() does not play the movie from its beginning, just rewinds it. The following Flash movie is courtesy of Swift3D. Play around with the following two buttons. You need to click the Play() method to start it going. Notice that when you click the Rewind button, only the movie rewinds; The sound track continues to loop and is not affected by the Rewind() method.

Rewind | Play

Here is the source code:

<SCRIPT LANGUAGE="JavaScript" SRC="flashmoviecheck.js"></SCRIPT>
<A href="javascript://" onclick="javascript:mySwf.Rewind(); return false">Rewind</A> | 
<A href="javascript://" onclick="javascript:mySwf.Play(); return false">Play</A>
<SCRIPT LANGUAGE="JavaScript">
  Flash_embedSWF("swift3d.swf");
  var mySwf = window.document.sonify;
</SCRIPT>