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Embedded Flash Tech Notes

Some of our products have embedded Flash with "taglines" that you can edit in the HTML (Blue Nebula, Ripple, Blue Ring, etc...). There have been some questions about these products that we hope to answer here.

Netscape issues

The <OBJECT> tag includes a tag inside it that looks like:
<PARAM NAME=movie ...>
Editing the tagline in this tag will affect only Internet Explorer. You will need to copy the tagline code and insert it into the <EMBED> tag. Not only that, you will need to go back into the EMBED tag and replace any spaces with "%20."

Before: <EMBED src="top.swf?tagline=Your tagline here" ...>
After: <EMBED src="top.swf?tagline=Your%20tagline%20here" ...>

Flash Text not showing up in FrontPage or on my computer

This is a Flash 6 Player issue. With some of the releases of the new Flash player plug-in, your Flash text will show up fine after you publish to a server, but will either not appear or have "default" taglines in FrontPage's Normal View and Preview in Browser.

You can easily fix this by inserting some extra lines of code in the HTML. If you open your web page, click on the Flash movie, then go into HTML view, you'll see code that may look something like this:

[figure 1]
<OBJECT CLASSID="clsid:D27CDB6E-AE6D-11cf-96B8-444553540000" CODEBASE="http://download.macromedia.com/..." WIDTH="400" HEIGHT="75">
<PARAM NAME="movie" VALUE="blue.swf?text1=Your heading here&text2=Your text here">
<PARAM NAME="quality" VALUE="high">
<PARAM NAME="bgcolor" VALUE="#FFFFFF">
<EMBED SRC="blue.swf?text1=Your%20heading%20here&text2=Your%20text%20here" QUALITY="high" BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF" WIDTH="400" HEIGHT="75" TYPE="application/x-shockwave-flash" PLUGINSPAGE="http://www.macromedia.com/shockwave/download...">
</EMBED>

As you may already know, the italicized text is how you define the Flash text.

To fix this issue, you will want to insert a "FlashVars" parameter in two places:

[figure 2]
<OBJECT CLASSID="clsid:D27CDB6E-AE6D-11cf-96B8-444553540000" CODEBASE="http://download.macromedia.com/..." WIDTH="400" HEIGHT="75">
<PARAM NAME="movie" VALUE="blue.swf?text1=Your heading here&text2=Your text here">
<PARAM NAME="FlashVars" VALUE="text1=Your heading here&text2=Your text here">
<PARAM NAME="quality" VALUE="high">
<PARAM NAME="bgcolor" VALUE="#FFFFFF">
<EMBED SRC="blue.swf?text1=Your%20heading%20here&text2=Your%20text%20here"
FLASHVARS="text1=Your%20heading%20here&text2=Your%20text%20here" QUALITY="high" BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF" WIDTH="400" HEIGHT="75" TYPE="application/x-shockwave-flash" PLUGINSPAGE="http://www.macromedia.com/shockwave/download...">
</EMBED>

First, you will need to insert another "<PARAM...>" tag with the FlashVars statement. For the "VALUE," simply use the original variables in the first PARAM statement (just copy and paste!). Second, you will need to insert a "FLASHVARS" statement inside the <EMBED ...> tag. Once again, use the same variables as in the "SRC" part before it.

Flash not showing up on some pages in subfolders

The movie probably is not referencing the correct location of the Flash movie. Click on the "empty" flash movie and go into HTML view. You will see code like this:

[figure 3]
<OBJECT CLASSID="clsid:D27CDB6E-AE6D-11cf-96B8-444553540000" CODEBASE="http://download.macromedia.com/..." WIDTH="400" HEIGHT="75">
<PARAM NAME="movie" VALUE="moviename.swf">
<PARAM NAME="quality" VALUE="high">
<PARAM NAME="bgcolor" VALUE="#FFFFFF">
<EMBED SRC="moviename.swf" QUALITY="high" BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF" WIDTH="400" HEIGHT="75" TYPE="application/x-shockwave-flash" PLUGINSPAGE="http://www.macromedia.com/shockwave/download...">
</EMBED>

Chances are that the movie location relative to the page location is not correct. Change the movie source to the correct location. For example, if your page is in a subfolder and your movie is in your main root folder, the source will look like: "../moviename.swf".

Flash Detection

If your user does not have the Flash player, they will not be able to view the Flash movie. In most cases you will not have to worry about this. However, if you are concerned with Flash detection, there are scripts available that you can use to either bring the user to a different site or to embed a static image in place of the movie. You will need to be very comfortable with editing HTML. Read more...

Special characters

You may wish to insert special characters (Á, è, etc.) into the Flash movie. You will need to type special ASCII character codes into the HTML in both the <PARAM> and the <EMBED> tags. Please see below for the chart of character codes that you may use.

*Note: Those who have bought one of our older Flash themes may have a version that does not have the special character font information in the movie. Please email us with your receipt or PixelMill username and the product in question and we will send you a new version.

**Another Note: Since some of the Flash movies use the '&' symbol to mark the new tagline, you should not end a phrase with the '&' (%26) sign. If for some reason you need to, try putting the code for a space after it: %26%20.

Example: <EMBED src="top.swf?tagline=Buenos%20D%CDas">
Flash movie will display: Buenos Días.
(Code for í = %CD ) 

Code Symbol Description

%20
%21
%22
%23
%24
%25
%26
%27
%28
%29
%2A
%2B
%2C
%2D
%2E
%2F
 

!
"
#
$
%
&
'
(
)
*
+
,
-
.
/
 
space
exclamation point
double quotes
number sign
dollar sign
percent sign
ampersand
single quote
opening parenthesis
closing parenthesis
asterisk
plus sign
comma
minus sign - hyphen
period
slash
 
Code Symbol Description

%30
%31
%32
%33
%34
%35
%36
%37
%38
%39
%3A
%3B
%3C
%3D
%3E
%3F
 
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
:
;
<
=
>
?
 
zero
one
two
three
four
five
six
seven
eight
nine
colon
semicolon
less than sign
equal sign
greater than sign
question mark
 
Code Symbol Description

%40
%41
%42
%43
%44
%45
%46
%47
%48
%49
%4A
%4B
%4C
%4D
%4E
%4F
 
@
A
B
C
D
E
F
G
H
I
J
K
L
M
N
O
 
at symbol















 
Code Symbol Description

%50
%51
%52
%53
%54
%55
%56
%57
%58
%59
%5A
%5B
%5C
%5D
%5E
%5F
 
P
Q
R
S
T
U
V
W
X
Y
Z
[
\
]
^
_
 











opening bracket
backslash
closing bracket
caret - circumflex
underscore
 
Code Symbol Description

%60
%61
%62
%63
%64
%65
%66
%67
%68
%69
%6A
%6B
%6C
%6D
%6E
%6F
 
`
a
b
c
d
e
f
g
h
i
j
k
l
m
n
o
 
grave accent















 
Code Symbol Description

%70
%71
%72
%73
%74
%75
%76
%77
%78
%79
%7A
%7B
%7C
%7D
%7E
 
p
q
r
s
t
u
v
w
x
y
z
{
|
}
~
 











opening brace
vertical bar
closing brace
equivalency sign - tilde
 
Code Symbol Description

%A0
%A1
%A2
%A3
%A4
%A5
%A6
%A7
%A8
%A9
%AA
%AB
%AC
%AD
%AE
%AF
 
 
¡
¢
£
¤
¥
¦
§
¨
©
ª
«
¬
­
®
¯
 
non-breaking space
inverted exclamation mark
cent sign
pound sign
currency sign
yen sign
broken vertical bar
section sign
spacing diaeresis - umlaut
copyright sign
feminine ordinal indicator
left double angle quotes
not sign
soft hyphen
registered trade mark sign
spacing macron - overline
 
Code Symbol Description

%B0
%B1
%B2
%B3
%B4
%B5
%B6
%B7
%B8
%B9
%BA
%BB
%BC
%BD
%BE
%BF
 
°
±
²
³
´
µ

·
¸
¹
º
»
¼
½
¾
¿
 
degree sign
plus-or-minus sign
superscript two - squared
superscript three - cubed
acute accent - spacing acute
micro sign
pilcrow sign - paragraph sign
middle dot - Georgian comma
spacing cedilla
superscript one
masculine ordinal indicator
right double angle quotes
fraction one quarter
fraction one half
fraction three quarters
inverted question mark
 
Code Symbol Description

%C0
%C1
%C2
%C3
%C4
%C5
%C6
%C7
%C8
%C9
%CA
%CB
%CC
%CD
%CE
%CF
 
À
Á
Â
Ã
Ä
Å
Æ
Ç
È
É
Ê
Ë
Ì
Í
Î
Ï
 
latin capital letter A with grave
latin capital letter A with acute
latin capital letter A with circumflex
latin capital letter A with tilde
latin capital letter A with diaeresis
latin capital letter A with ring above
latin capital letter AE
latin capital letter C with cedilla
latin capital letter E with grave
latin capital letter E with acute
latin capital letter E with circumflex
latin capital letter E with diaeresis
latin capital letter I with grave
latin capital letter I with acute
latin capital letter I with circumflex
latin capital letter I with diaeresis
 
Code Symbol Description

%D0
%D1
%D2
%D3
%D4
%D5
%D6
%D7
%D8
%D9
%DA
%DB
%DC
%DD
%DE
%DF
 
Ð
Ñ
Ò
Ó
Ô
Õ
Ö
×
Ø
Ù
Ú
Û
Ü
Ý
Þ
ß
 
latin capital letter ETH
latin capital letter N with tilde
latin capital letter O with grave
latin capital letter O with acute
latin capital letter O with circumflex
latin capital letter O with tilde
latin capital letter O with diaeresis
multiplication sign
latin capital letter O with slash
latin capital letter U with grave
latin capital letter U with acute
latin capital letter U with circumflex
latin capital letter U with diaeresis
latin capital letter Y with acute
latin capital letter THORN
latin small letter sharp s - ess-zed
 
Code Symbol Description

%E0
%E1
%E2
%E3
%E4
%E5
%E6
%E7
%E8
%E9
%EA
%EB
%EC
%ED
%EE
%EF
 
à
á
â
ã
ä
å
æ
ç
è
é
ê
ë
ì
í
î
ï
 
latin small letter a with grave
latin small letter a with acute
latin small letter a with circumflex
latin small letter a with tilde
latin small letter a with diaeresis
latin small letter a with ring above
latin small letter ae
latin small letter c with cedilla
latin small letter e with grave
latin small letter e with acute
latin small letter e with circumflex
latin small letter e with diaeresis
latin small letter i with grave
latin small letter i with acute
latin small letter i with circumflex
latin small letter i with diaeresis
 
Code Symbol Description

%F0
%F1
%F2
%F3
%F4
%F5
%F6
%F7
%F8
%F9
%FA
%FB
%FC
%FD
%FE
%FF
 
ð
ñ
ò
ó
ô
õ
ö
÷
ø
ù
ú
û
ü
ý
þ
ÿ
 
latin small letter eth
latin small letter n with tilde
latin small letter o with grave
latin small letter o with acute
latin small letter o with circumflex
latin small letter o with tilde
latin small letter o with diaeresis
division sign
latin small letter o with slash
latin small letter u with grave
latin small letter u with acute
latin small letter u with circumflex
latin small letter u with diaeresis
latin small letter y with acute
latin small letter thorn
latin small letter y with diaeresis
 

*Note: The "Code" is the standard ASCII code in hexadecimal form.