RapidWeaver FAQ - Movies and Flash content
Adding QuickTime movies to RapidWeaver is really easy. I just drag&drop them and they show up. But what about flash content? Flash movies? And what about integrating into RapidWeaver movies I store on an external server (external reference)?
CHAPTER 1: Movies display as Q instead of movies?
CHAPTER 2: Storing Flash files and other content on your iDisk
CHAPTER 3: Storing Flash files and other content on non-MobileMe
CHAPTER 4: Integrating video to RapidWeaver
4.1 WMV
4.2 QuickTime (If drag&drop doesn’t work)
4.3 FLV
4.4 SWF
4.5 Real
4.6 A general way which should work for almost all files
NOTE 1
CHAPTER 1: Movies display as Q instead of movies?
The Q means that the movie is loading. If you don’t want the Q and want the progress bar instead (sometimes also referred to as quick start)
Open the file using QuickTime Pro.
From the File menu choose "Save As..." and pick the Desktop as the save location so you don't have to rename the file.
(This was suggested by QuickTimeKirk on the Apple Discussion Forum)
CHAPTER 2: Storing Flash files and other content on your iDisk
1. Create a folder in your iDisk/Web/Sites folder.
2. Name it something like 'files' or ‘movies’ or whatever
3. Copy your .flv or any other file to that folder
4. web.me.com/username/nameofthefolder/nameofthefile.extension is the address at which the file will be stored on the web
Example: http://web.me.com/username/movies/nameofthefile.flv
Substitute the url in the codes of Chapter 5 with that one modified to fit your case
Chapter 3: Storing Flash files and other content on non-MobileMe
1. Create a new folder
2. Name this new folder something like 'files' or ‘movies’ or whatever
3. Copy your .flv or any other file to that folder
4. Upload the folder to your server using your FTP application
5. yourbaseurl.com/nameofthefolder/nameofthefile.extension is the address at which the file will be stored on the web
Example: http://yourbaseurl.com/movies/nameofthefile.flv
Substitute the url in the codes of Chapter 5 with that one modified to fit your case
Chapter 4: Integrating video to RapidWeaver
In general you only have to change the following parameters:
- Width & Height
- Autostart (or Autoplay)
- Controller
and only if you want to. The other parameters don’t need to be changed and you don’t have to care about them.
Where I wrote sample.wmv or any other “sample.” you need to replace it with the full url of the movie you found following Chapter 2 or Chapter 3 (or you know what the url is). It will look something like that:
http://yourdomain.com/folder/sample.wmv
Change the sizes width and height parameters (number of pixels). Read the note about that at the end of the page.
Value true or 1 means that you agree with the action it is set for (it is enabled)
Value false or 0 means that you do not agree with the action it is set for (it is disabled)
Once you added the code to RapidWeaver select it all and go to “< >” (Apply HTML markup) and choose “Code”.
The following codes were collected all over the internet. I hope they work. Simply copy and paste them into your pages (after you modified them to fit your case).
4.1 WMV<object type="video/x-ms-wmv"
data="sample.wmv"
width="320" height="260">
<param name="src" value="sample.wmv" />
<param name="autostart" value="true" />
<param name="controller" value="true" />
</object>
4.2 QuickTime
The following code is written for a 320x240 px movie. As you will notice the height is set to 256 and not 240px. That’s because the movie controls take 16px in height and those must be added to the height for the controls to work properly.<OBJECT CLASSID="clsid:02BF25D5-8C17-4B23-BC80-D3488ABDDC6B" WIDTH="320"
HEIGHT="256" CODEBASE="http://www.apple.com/qtactivex/qtplugin.cab">
<PARAM name="SRC" VALUE="sample.mov">
<PARAM name="AUTOPLAY" VALUE="true">
<PARAM name="CONTROLLER" VALUE="true">
<EMBED SRC="sample.mov" WIDTH="320" HEIGHT="256" AUTOPLAY="true"
CONTROLLER="true"
PLUGINSPAGE="http://www.apple.com/quicktime/download/">
</EMBED>
</OBJECT>
You can disable the movie controls by changing the parameters Controller=”true” to Controller=”false”.
4.3 FLV<object type="application/x-shockwave-flash" data="http://flv-player.net/medias/player_flv_mini.swf" width="320" height="240">
<param name="movie" value="http://flv-player.net/medias/player_flv_mini.swf" />
<param name="allowFullScreen" value="true" />
<param name="FlashVars" value="flv=sample.flv&autoplay=1&autoload=1" />
</object>
That uses the player of http://flv-player.net/
4.4 SWF<object classid="clsid:d27cdb6e-ae6d-11cf-96b8-444553540000"
codebase="http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=6,0,40,0"
width="468" height="60"
id="mymoviename">
<param name="movie"
value="sample.swf" />
<param name="quality" value="high" />
<param name="bgcolor" value="#ffffff" />
<embed src="sample.swf" quality="high" bgcolor="#ffffff"
width="468" height="60"
name="mymoviename" align="" type="application/x-shockwave-flash"
pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer">
</embed>
</object>
4.5 Real<object width="320" height="256"
classid="CLSID:CFCDAA03-8BE4-11CF-B84B-0020AFBBCCFA">
<param name="src" value="sample.rm" />
<param name="center" value="false" />
<param name="maintainaspect" value="true" />
<param name="autostart" value="false" />
<param name="numloop" value="1" />
<param name="controls" value="imagewindow,all" />
</object>
4.6 A general way which should work for almost all files
A general way which should work for almost all file formats is to use an iFrame. Simply copy and paste the following code into a page:<iframe src=
"http://YourURL.com/Folder/NameOfTheFile.swf"
style="width:370px; height:280px;
border-width:0px;
border-color:#990033;
border-style:solid;"
scrolling="auto" >
</iframe>
substituting the url with the one you found uploading the files as of Chapter 2 or 3 of this page and changing width and height parameters. That’s it. Publish your website.
Visit the following sites for further informations:
http://www.exploittheweb.co.uk/objects.html (*****Best)
http://www.danfergusdesign.com/classfiles/VCA225-digiProduction/exercises/ex-videoEmbed.html
http://www.alistapart.com/articles/byebyeembed
http://developer.apple.com/quicktime/compatibility.html
NOTE 1
If you experience the following problem:
“The shape of the picture is not quite right - the player seems to squeeze the picture slightly even though I know I have the correct pixel ratio set up”.
You should try to play around a bit with pixels... Maybe different things handle pixel slightly differently... Maybe you have to include the pixels used by the movie control bar...
“I have done that by measuring it. For my 400x225 16:9 movie, I needed to add 18 pixels to the height parameter and it worked. This is solved, thanks”
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