Flash 'complete' status to show button?

[Scally]

Hi folks,
I noticed the status in FScommand action & although I've searched previous posts, I can't see what I'm looking for. This is what I'm trying to do:
Flash movie plays on jumping to a page. When its finished I want to give the user the choice of going back to the previous page or going on to the next page.
That part works OK.
What I'd like to do is hide the 'next page' button in AMS until the flash movie has finished playing. Once it's finished, the button should appear.
I'm a bit confused as to whether I need to do something in Flash, as when I displayed the status in a msgbox, it showed 'complete' before the movie had finished.
Can anyone lift my newbie confusion please?
Scally

[Corey]

Re: Flash 'complete' status to show button?

Hi Scally, yep this is easy:

1. Insert an fscommand on the last frame of your flash movie, i.e. an fscommand named "showbutton".

2. Add the flash to your AMS project and then add a PAGE > SHOW OBJECT > YOURBUTTON action to it's OnFSCommand state.

Corey Milner
Creative Director, Indigo Rose Software

[Scally]

Re: Flash 'complete' status to show button?

Thanks Corey,
I'll give it a go tommorow.
Cheers.

[Scally]

Re: Flash 'complete' status to show button?

Yep,
Thats working fine.
Next problem is I have a couple of Video's that have been compressed into SWF files. I can't add anything to them since the compression generates the SWF & there's no FLA to tweak.
I tried embedding the SWF in another FLA with frame 1 loading the original SWF & frame 2 having the FSCommand.
These work OK outside of AMS but for some reason the video doesn't play in AMS. (I tried copying original movie SWF to the distribution directory & building but it doesn't work either)
Any ideas, please?
Scally

[Corey]

Re: Flash 'complete' status to show button?

Not sure. Usually tools such as Flix allow you to add a "load movie at end" action. You could always create a container swf which loads your first video and then fires an FScomand but you have to make the container video the same number of frames as your video swf plus one, not just 2 frames...

Corey Milner
Creative Director, Indigo Rose Software

[Scally]

Re: Flash 'complete' status to show button?

Thanks Corey,
I'll give it a try. I'm pretty sure that Sorenson doesn't have the option, so a container of len+1 might be the answer.
Scally

[Corey]

Re: Flash 'complete' status to show button?

OK but isn't the sorenson swf importable? Seems to me they are, if it is you can easily just tack on the fscommand to the last frame otherwise like you say, it's a container of len+1.

Either will work. The container movie is more convenient if your content is going to change someday because it's dynamic and can be easily reconfigured without having to touch the vid swfs.

Anyhoo best of luck...

Corey Milner
Creative Director, Indigo Rose Software

[Scally]

Re: Flash 'complete' status to show button?

Hi,
I think this is probably an issue with Flash rather than AMS but for info :
When I tried to import the SWF into flash, nothing showed on play - so I tried to create a container. This worked in the flash player except that the video now looped (which it didn't in AMS originally).
If I recompress the video as flv & then import it into flash, I can add a frame at the end of the flash & the AMS project works OK.
In this case, because I'd got sound on the video, it was also recompressed & consequently I lost audio quality.
The answer then is:
To build video but when exporting the edited AVI, remove the audio. Then compress as flv & import the flv into flash. In flash, re-add the audio & set its properties to 'Raw'.
Create a final frame, add 'Showbutton' as an FScommand. Publish & move to the AMS\resources\flash folder.
I can't see why it wouldn't work in other ways but at least this way seems to.