FLASH: Wish list: Enhanced portability of .swfs

[Harrison, Len]

Following sent to flasher list and wish-flash:


Flash currently offers one of the best approaches to animation and

interactivity available today. In the Windows environment, the Flash .ocx is

an extremely powerful control suitable for embedding in environments as

diverse as Powerpoint, C++ or VB applications, and Web browsers.


However, there are two limitations with respect to using .swfs outside of

Web or the relatively narrow functionality of standalone players:


1) The .ocx, activeX control for Windows has a dependency chain which is

only satisfied if IE has previously been installed on the client machine.

This chain begins with urlmon.dll and fans out from there. The control

returns an error and refuses to init if this .dll and those below it are not

present and registered.

2) The Flash 4 Director xtra is the poorest implimentation of the Flash

player available. It does not support layered .swfs, does not automatically

change cursor over buttons, requires special handling of buttons through FS

Commands and Lingo, and breaks on certain applications of tell target to

movie clips within the Flash movie itself.


I'd suggest the following fixes for future releases of Flash and/or

Director:


1) Creation of an alternative .ocx control which was not dependent on

urlmon.dll. This call is only used in the geturl syntax. Such a control

would be used within VB, C++, Office Applications, etc. where the ability to

call a Web page could easily be implemented in the host language anyway.

Creating such a control could be as simple as disabling the error check for

urlmon.dll on init or commenting out that block of code. Geturl could be

handled as a special type of FS Command as it is in the Director player or

simply disregarded with the developer required to include appropriate code

through an FS Command.


Doing this extends the functionality of Flash way beyond the Web and would

allow for Flash to be used as a front-end for any application whose source

language  supports ActiveX controls as well as in mixed media presentations

of all kinds. 


2) Implementation of a full-featured Flash xtra for Director whose

functionality mirrors that of the Netscape plug-in and the ActiveX control.


This would allow us to more effectively use Flash with Director. As it

stands now, complex Flash movies need to be rewritten in order to work in

Director. We use Flash for Web-based presentations and interactive tutorials

and then frequently need the additional functionality of Director to

encapsulate these presentations for display within another environment such

as kiosk or CD. As it stands presently, we need to massage all our Flash

when we do this to allow for the more limited functionality of the Flash

xtra in Director. It would be nice not to have to do that.


Thanks for your consideration of these ideas,


len harrison (

lenhabtcorp [dot] com

)

instructional designer

ABT Corporation



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