Using flash XML as a Global Content Block ??

[pixelvandal]

G'Day

I have a swf that's sort of like a photo slideshow. Image paths, transition times etc are getting referenced by a .xml file and i store my images in a uploads/images/banners/  folder.

I call my .xml file from within the flash action script. Does anyone know of anyway of calling a {Global Content Block} within the .fla so then I can just put the xml file in that {GCB} so it can be administrated very easy?

Cheers

Adrian

[scooper]

Hmmm - nice question. Short answer is "Nope, I don't know".

My first approach though would be to try using a template rather than a global content block. That way you're going to minimse confusion about doctypes and the like.

Create a new template with just your XML in  - you don't even need to have content tags in or anything if you want to keep it in one place. Then just create a page using that template. You can then reference the xml using that page alias. When you want to update the XML you just edit the template instead of a global content block.

The nice way to do it would probably involve writng a module that outputs a static file of course, but, hey, that sounds like work.

[pixelvandal]

Work,,,,, yeah!

Thanks for your reply,

The reasoning behind the {GCB} was to make it easy for the client to update their own flash banner images via the admin system.
I'll have a play when i get some time and post the results back up here.

Cheerio

[scooper]

well in one of those strange twists - this morning I've just had to implement a video playlist using yep, an XML playlist.

Sooo - the way I've done it is to create a template called 'XML playlist'

Code: Select all

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<playlist version="1" xmlns="http://xspf.org/ns/0/">
	<trackList>

{content}

	</trackList>
</playlist>

Then I've created a page - called 'goalPlaylist' with the tracklisting in. You could of course stick this in a global content block and have theat in the template instead of {content}, but because I'm going to need a couple of playlists I've gone for separate pages.
So the page looks like:

Code: Select all

		
		<track>
			<title>Placeholder</title>
			<creator>millipedia</creator>
			<location>placeholder.flv</location>
		</track>

		<track>
			<title>Another placeholder</title>
			<creator>Still millco</creator>
			<location>placeholder2.flv</location>
		</track>

		<track>
			<title>Guess what</title>
			<creator>You get the idea</creator>
			<location>placeholder3.flv</location>
		</track>

and then to wrap it all up, I've got the video player. In this case I'm using flvplayer and passing the playlist page via javascript.

Code: Select all

<__script__ type="text/javascript">
	var so = new SWFObject('uploads/video/flvplayer.swf','player','400','355','7');
	so.addParam("allowfullscreen","true");
	so.addVariable("file","goalPlaylist.html");
	so.addVariable("displayheight","220");
	so.addVariable("backcolor","0xffffff");
	so.addVariable("frontcolor","0x666666");
	so.addVariable("lightcolor","0x557722");
	so.write('player');
</__script>

And it works a treat. Obviously yours will differ slightly but at the least the principle of using an XML playlist with Flash is working fine.