I’m having a little dilemma involving a Flash file at the bottom of my web page. The Flash file has some sound playing that should start when the page is loaded, but it won’t start playing until you scroll all the way down to where the Flash file it. I assume this is because the Flash file doesn’t load until the area becomes visible in the browser. (I thought Flash files used to load automatically? Is this a new way that Flash Player handles files maybe?).
Is there a way to force the page to load flash files that are below the visible part of the browser window? I first thought it might be a “play” command in actionscript or behaviors that needed to be changed, but the file doesn’t use them just plays as soon as it is loaded on the page. I also don’t see any loading options to change on the embedding HTML generated by Flash.
The whole website used to be one big flash file (not my design), but that was rather unwieldy and didn’t work well for what was needed so I stripped it down to the animations and sound controls in Flash and made everything else HTML.
I can’t really separate the sound out of that file because that is where the sound controls are, and pages are going to have varying lengths so I really can’t make a super tall flash file and layer the html on top (plus that just wouldn’t be any fun at all).
OK, I think I figured out what the issue is. When the wmode is anything other than “window” (default) the music doesn’t start until the flash object loads. Changing it back to window from opaque fixed the problem so now the music starts automatically.
I’m not sure why it works that way, but now that I know what causes that issue I can avoid it in the future.
FlowPlayer is good for audio files too, and you can have an associated image. If this isn’t an audio file you are embedding, maybe I’m wrong. I just made an assumption that you were trying to get an audio file to play.
I thought FlowPlayer was just for video though… would that work for decorative layout elements? I don’t need the video controls or anything like that. I’ve poked around with FP a long time ago but never ended up using it for anything… guess I’ll have to give it another look.
It’s basically a flash animation with background music. Little background elements that move around with the background music. It’s based on a premade flash template that they picked out similar to this one: http://www.templatemonster.com/flash-templates/29282.html
Obviously you’re not going to be able to see the animation until you scroll down, but the music should be playing as soon as the page comes up, and right now it is embedded in the flash file and that’s all I have to work with.
I ended up only keeping the bottom half of the flash file - the bg animations and sound controls because that’s what they liked about it, making the rest regular HTML. But it gets pushed below the fold and you don’t get any music until that flash file loads. I know a javascript player would make more sense, but that would involve remaking the bottom of the page from scratch - and I’m not the one who made it so all I have are the .fla file to work with.