Creating a Flash projector
Distributing the Flash Player
Third-party utilities for Flash stand-alones
This chapter explores alternative means of distributing your Flash movies as self-contained executable applications for CD/DVD-ROMs or other removable storage devices. I also look at the broad support available for the Flash Player plug-in for Web browsers.
The stand-alone Flash Player and projector enable you to take your Flash right off the Web and onto the desktop without having to worry whether users have the plug-in. In fact, you don't even need to worry about them having browsers! Stand-alone players and projectors have similar properties and limitations, although they're slightly different.
Stand-alone player: This is an executable player that comes with Flash CS5. You can open any SWF file in this player. The stand-alone player can be found in the
Adobe/Flash CS5/Players/Releasefolder (Windows) or theAdobe Flash CS5:Players:Releasefolder (Mac) on the volume where you installed Flash CS5.Projector: A projector is an executable copy of your movie that doesn't need an additional player or plug-in to be viewed. It's essentially a movie contained within the stand-alone player. The projector is ideal for distribution of Flash applications on CD-ROMs or DVD-ROMs. Figure 20.1 shows a Flash movie played as a projector on Windows.
For the sake of simplicity, I refer to both projectors and movies played in the stand-alone Flash Player as stand-alones in this discussion. Because both the projector and stand-alone player have similar properties and limitations, you can apply everything discussed here to either one you choose to use.
Note
Due to the differences in operating systems, Flash stand-alones on Mac have the application menu listed in the system bar at the top of the Mac desktop area. On Windows, the application menu bar is part of the stand-alone window, as shown in Figure 20.1.
When you have finished producing a Flash movie, it's fairly simple to turn it into a projector. You have two ways to create a stand-alone projector. Turning your Flash movies into Flash Player 10 stand-alone projectors typically adds 4MB (Windows projectors) or 13MB (Mac projectors) to the final file size.
The simplest way to make a Flash projector file is to use the Publish feature of Flash CS5. In three short steps, you can have a stand-alone Flash movie presentation.
Choose File
When the Publish Settings dialog box opens, select the Formats tab and check the projector formats. Publish both Windows and Mac projectors by using this method. Figure 20.2 shows the Publish Settings dialog box with the appropriate formats selected. Be sure to select the Flash tab to control how your Flash movie is compiled (Flash Player version, ActionScript version, and so on).
Click the Publish button in the Publish Settings dialog box, and your Flash movie will be published in all the formats (for example, .swf, .gif, .jpg, and projector formats) specified with Publish Settings.
You can also create a Flash projector file by using the stand-alone Flash Player executable file that ships with Flash CS5. You can find the stand-alone Flash Player in the Players/Release folder of the Flash CS5 application folder.
Distribution of stand-alone projectors or the Flash Player is free; you don't have to buy a license to distribute either the stand-alone Flash Player or projector. However, according to Adobe, you need to follow specific guidelines for distributed Flash Players and projectors. You can download the runtime license agreement and Adobe logos from the Adobe Web site. For more information, check out www.adobe.com/products/players/fpsh_distribution1.html.
The Flash platform has become increasingly popular for use on multimedia CD-ROMs or DVD-ROMs, especially as embedded SWF files in larger Adobe Director projectors. Stand-alones can be used as front ends for installations, splash screens for other programs, or even as complete applications. When you combine the good looks of a Flash interface with a few fscommand actions (see the next section for more information) and put them together on a CD-ROM (or DVD-ROM) that's programmed to start automatically on insertion, you have a first-class product.
Warning
As a general rule, don't try to send projector files (EXE files) as attachments to e-mail messages. Most current e-mail clients, such as Microsoft Outlook, do not allow you to open an e-mail containing an executable file, protecting you against computer virus infections.
When you create a stand-alone, the task may not be as simple as taking your Flash document and exporting it as a projector. This section briefly discusses issues that may affect the performance of your projector.
When you distribute your Flash movies as stand-alones, you may think that you won't have to worry about streaming and download. As a consequence, stand-alones are often made considerably larger than a typical Flash movie — which can be a mistake! Very large movies (5MB or more) may not play well on slower computers with Pentium III (or PowerMac G4) or older processors. Remember that Flash movies require the computer processor to compute all those vector calculations, especially for rich animation. When you try to give a slower computer a large Flash movie to load, it may not be able to handle it.
Tip
One way to get around this limitation is to break your movies into several smaller movies. You can use the loadMovie/unloadMovie actions to open and close other movies within the original movie. You should use these actions in your stand-alones.
You should also test your movies on a variety of computers, especially if you plan to put a lot of development time and money into distributing them on CD-ROM. Some processors handle the movies better than others, and you often have to decide which processor you want to target as the lowest common denominator.
Flash movies can be played only in Web browsers that have the Flash Player plug-in or ActiveX control installed. Macromedia has made huge strides in making the plug-in prepackaged with newer Web browsers and operating system installation programs, eliminating the need for users to manually download and install the plug-in themselves. Unfortunately, the Flash Player 9 version of the plug-in will likely only be included in future releases of Web browsers and operating systems. Remember that earlier versions of the plug-in can try to play Flash movies published for Flash Player 9; however, new features in Flash Player 9–based movies (such as ActionScript 3.0, full-screen movie sizes, and so on) will not be available.
Note
For up-to-date information on the Flash Player plug-in, see Adobe's download page at www.adobe.com/shockwave/download/alternates.
Since Flash 3, Adobe has greatly expanded its platform support for the Flash Player plug-in. At the time of this writing, you can download Flash Players for Windows 95/98/ME/NT/2000/XP/Vista/7, for Power PC and Intel Macs, and for Linux x86. At conferences worldwide, Adobe has demonstrated that Flash graphics can be ported to a variety of GUIs (graphical user interfaces) and operating systems. We've also seen Flash graphics showing up in add-on applications for entertainment consoles such as the Sony PlayStation and set-top boxes from Motorola.
The Flash Player plug-in works best with Mozilla-compatible and Internet Explorer browsers. Any browser compliant with Netscape Navigator 2.0's plug-in specification or Internet Explorer's ActiveX technology can support the Flash Player plug-in or ActiveX control, respectively. Note that Mac versions of Internet Explorer or Apple Safari use a Netscape plug-in emulator to use the Flash Player plug-in rather than an ActiveX control.
For AOL subscribers, any version of AOL's 3.0 through 9.0 browsers (except for the earliest 3.0 release that used a non-Microsoft Internet Explorer shell) supports Adobe plug-ins.
For a comprehensive list of supported browsers (and Flash compatibility), see the Adobe tech note at www.adobe.com/support/flash/ts/documents/browser_support_matrix.htm.
Anyone can download the Flash Player plug-in for free from the Adobe Web site. You can direct visitors of your Web sites to Adobe's Flash Player download page, www.adobe.com/go/getflashplayer. In fact, according to Adobe's licensing agreement, if you're publishing Flash movies on your Web site, you need to display the "Get Shockwave Player" logo or "Get Flash Player" logo on your Web site. This logo should link to Adobe's download page, which I just listed. However, you can't distribute the plug-in installer yourself — you need to license the right to distribute any plug-in installer from Adobe. For more details on licensing, see www.adobe.com/licensing/.
You can find the official Adobe button graphics at:
www.adobe.com/macromedia/style_guide/buttons/
In Chapter 18 I discuss the Publish feature of Flash CS5 and the use of preformatted HTML templates to deliver your Flash movies to your Web site. The template and/or handwritten HTML that you use for your Flash-enabled Web pages determines the degree of difficulty your visitors will have upon loading a Flash movie.
Adobe has also officially named the auto-update experience of the Flash Player plug-in as Express Install. This feature refers to the nearly pain-free process of upgrading from Flash Player 6 or later to the latest version of the Flash Player. Flash Player 7 was released with an auto-update feature, enabling new versions of the plug-in to download without the hassle of installing an updated ActiveX control or downloading a plug-in installer application.
Note
You can change the auto-update preferences of your Flash Player installation by visiting the following Adobe Web page:
www.adobe.com/support/documentation/en/flashplayer/help/settings_manager05.html
By default, the Flash Player checks for an updated version of the plug-in every 30 days. You can change the time interval to as little as 7 days.
Flash Player 6 introduced the Settings option from the Flash Player's contextual menu, which can be accessed by right-clicking (or Control+clicking on Mac) a Flash movie. When you choose the Settings option, the Macromedia Flash Player Settings dialog box opens. This dialog box has four tabs, which are discussed in the following sections.
This tab, shown in Figure 20.4, controls the access of the current Flash movie to your Webcam and microphone. Whenever a Flash movie tries to access your Webcam or microphone, the Flash Player opens this tab to ask you for permission. You can choose Allow, which gives the Flash movie access to your camera and microphone, or Deny, which stops the Flash movie from gaining access to these devices. You can also select the Remember check box so that the Flash Player remembers the choice you made, preventing the dialog box from opening during subsequent visits to the same Flash movie (or Web site hosting the Flash movie). If you click the Advanced button in the Privacy tab, a new Web browser opens and loads the help page for the Settings options on Macromedia's site.
Note
Flash movies can stream live audio and video to Flash Media Server applications by using the Camera, Microphone, and NetStream objects.
The Privacy option applies to any and all Flash movies hosted on the domain listed in the Privacy tab.
Note
For the most up-to-date information on the Privacy tab, refer to the following page on Macromedia's site:
www.adobe.com/support/flashplayer/help/privacy/
You can also access the Global Settings manager on Adobe's site, which enables you to control the privacy settings for all sites you have visited. Go to the following URL:
www.adobe.com/support/flashplayer/help/settings/global_privacy.html
As shown in Figure 20.5, the Local Storage tab controls how much information can be stored on your computer from the Flash Player. Since Flash Player 6, Flash movies can be engineered to store data on the user's machine, with the use of local Shared Objects. The SharedObject class in ActionScript enables you to store customized information on a user's machine, just like cookies can store information from a Web application.
By default, a Web site and Flash movies hosted on that site can allocate as much as 100K of data on a user's machine. If a Flash movie hosted from a Web site requests more than this amount, the Flash Player automatically opens this tab asking for the user's permission to store more data. You can click the Never Ask Again option to prevent the Flash Player from automatically opening this tab when a site requests to store more data than its allotted amount.
Note
You can find the latest information about the Local Storage tab at:
www.macromedia.com/support/documentation/en/flashplayer/help/help02.html.
The Microphone tab, shown in Figure 20.6, controls the source of audio input to a Flash movie. Depending on your computer system, you may have several audio capture devices listed in this tab's menu. If you don't have an audio capture device on your system, then you may not see any options available in this panel. You can use this tab to control the sensitivity of the microphone (or capture device) by adjusting the slider position. The tab provides real-time audio monitoring with a bar graph. You can click the Reduce Echo check box to minimize the echo or feedback from a speaker that is located near your microphone.
The Camera tab, shown in Figures 20.7 and 20.8, controls the camera source used by the Flash Player. If your computer does not have a camera (or digital video capture card, which includes FireWire, or IEEE 1394, cards), then you may not see a camera source listed in this tab. If you have multiple video capture sources, you can use this tab to control which source is used for live streams going out of the Flash movie into a Flash Media Server application.
You can click the camera icon in the Camera tab to see live video from your chosen capture source, as shown in Figure 20.8. If you do not see any picture in this area after you click the camera icon, you may have a problem with your capture driver, or the Flash Player may be incompatible with the driver.
Note
For more information on the Camera tab and its settings, see the following page on Macromedia's site: www.adobe.com/support/flashplayer/help/camera.
You can also reformat and modify stand-alones for both Windows and Mac. A few software companies create applications specifically designed to modify Flash movies and stand-alones. Here is a list of Web site URLs for those companies:
Some of these companies offer more than just one utility for Flash movie development, such as the JTools of FlashJester. For updates to this list, check out this book's Web site, listed in the preface of this book.
Tip
You can find directories of Flash utilities at www.flashmagazine.com and graphicssoft.about.com/cs/flashtools.
One of our favorite utilities is Versiown, created by Goldshell Digital Media. This handy utility allows you to modify the properties of a Flash (or Director) projector file, specifically EXE versions for Windows. With Versiown, you can:
Add or modify the version information that shows up in the Properties dialog box, accessible by right-clicking the .exe file and choosing Properties.
Add a custom icon for the .exe file of the projector. Together with an icon utility such as IconBuilder from Iconfactory (which is a filter plug-in for Adobe Photoshop), you can make custom .ico files to be used as icons for your Flash projectors.
You can download trial versions of Versiown at www.goldshell.com/versiown. A trial of IconBuilder is available at www.iconfactory.com/ib_home.asp.
Note
You can use the Get Info dialog box (Mac OS X) on Mac files to easily replace the icon image for Flash projector files on Mac. Open the .ico file made from IconBuilder in an image editor such as Adobe Photoshop, use Edit
Flash movies can be viewed in Web pages with the Flash Player plug-in or ActiveX control. You can also play Flash movie files (.swf) with the stand-alone Flash Player included with the Flash CS5 application, or you can publish a Mac or Windows projector that packages the stand-alone Flash Player and .swf file into one executable file.
You can freely distribute a Flash movie projector or stand-alone Flash Player as long as you adhere to the guidelines outlined at Adobe's Web site.
Flash movies can be distributed with other multimedia presentations such as Macromedia Director projectors. Your Flash movies can be distributed on a CD-ROM or DVD-ROM.
You can enhance your Flash movies with third-party tools such as FlashJester's JTools for Flash.