Standalone player

[mjanke]

I'm looking for a standalone flasher player. Any recommendations? I want to give someone a flash presentation on CD and have them be able to play it without a browser.

There's a freeware flash movie maker out there (powerbullet I think it's called) that can create standalone flash presentations as an .exe, and this type of thing would be ideal, but a separate player would be OK too.

[gusmus]

Try this site : http://www.swftools.com/tool-details.php?tool=9532600494 Version 1.1 is freeware and a very nice easy to use flash tool kit, version 2.0 is basically the same kit with some added features but it is a trial download. Cheers

[mjanke]

Cool! Thanks, that looks like just what I need.

mike

[mjanke]

Turns out it's a great little piece of software that, among other things, does exactly what I need.

I'm curious if you have any idea why FlashTools wants to access the Internet each time I start it up? Can't find anything in the help file... heck, I can't find the help file. :)

[Fingermonkey]

It probaby installed an item into Startup. For Win98 and Me, from the start menu click Run, then type in msconfig and click OK to access the System Configuration Utility, click the Startup tab and uncheck the new listing for the FlashToolset. (Not sure if the directions are the same for XP.)

[mjanke]

Originally posted by Fingermonkey
It probaby installed an item into Startup.

Sorry, I meant everytime I run Flashtools, not every time I start the computer.

According to my firewall, it's trying to access port 80 at some IP, so it appears to be a website, but even when I allow it, I don't see anything different than when I don't allow it.

Anyway, it turns out to be not so great after all. When I create an .exe with it, the sound is out of sync with the graphics. It's off just a tiny bit off at the start but over time, that increases and it's waaaayyyy off by the end.

Looks like I'll have to find another solution.

[Fingermonkey]

In SAFlashPlayer version 7 (that I got from FLASHPULSE) you can open an .swf and then click File > Create Projector, and it saves the .swf as an Application (projector.exe) file which I can be played on its own without the standard Flash Player . Might this be an option for you?

[tmoore935]

I could be wrong but there was a post about this 2 years ago. Johnie the moderator explained that if you drag the swf to an old projector.exe, you can get a standalone projector. I email myself swf's to work and then drag them to an exe and presto, I get a projector. My pc at work does not have flash. I do this because swf are way smaller files. I believe it has something to do with IE. You would have to wait until monday for me to actuall test this out. This was also 5 pc's ago.


Also with flashtools, use the oldest version as it will be the smallest exe projector around. I have not tried the newer version. It may still be good. It also lets you add your own icon.

Also try this, it is about seven tuts that explain it all. That last one is for testing.

http://www.flashkit.com/tutorials/Projector/

[mjanke]

Originally posted by Fingermonkey
Might this be an option for you?

If it'll create a projector file that is identical to the swf, meaning the timing of audio to graphics is not affected, then yes, that'd work for me.

I don't need anything fancy. I just want to distribute something as an .exe, but I don't want to have to spend hours trying to get everything to sync up correctly in the resulting .exe.

Where do I get this?

mike

[mjanke]

Originally posted by tmoore935
I could be wrong but there was a post about this 2 years ago. Johnie the moderator explained that if you drag the swf to an old projector.exe, you can get a standalone projector.

So you're saying if I use Flashtools to create a projector file, then once I have that .exe, I can drag my swf over it an it will be magically replaced within the .exe??

Will that fix my problem of the timing of the audio vs. the graphics being off as compared to the swf?

mike

[tmoore935]

Originally posted by mjanke
So you're saying if I use Flashtools to create a projector file, then once I have that .exe, I can drag my swf over it an it will be magically replaced within the .exe??

Will that fix my problem of the timing of the audio vs. the graphics being off as compared to the swf?

mike

I am saying that a swf (from any program) can crerate a exe. Without buying any software. But give me till monday to go back to work to figure it out. (This is a big holiday in the USA). If you do a koolmoves search you will find the answer. Also look at the tuts from the link that I gave. Then look at the one with the author johnie.

I would also like to know your age and the country that you are from. That would help when people are trying to explain.

Also for a auto run CD, Go to
http://www.northcode.com/resources/utilities.html
I created a auto cd for a realestate person. What northcode has is something that will open a html instead of a exe which is what windows wants. And read the instructions. It is very easy. I did not try it with koolmoves but with flash5

When you run flashtools it will be seen in the taskbar. Just tell it to exit.

As far as the sync with music, I have problems myself so I use event sounds (like for buttons).

[mjanke]

Originally posted by tmoore935
I would also like to know your age and the country that you are from. That would help when people are trying to explain.

It's a big holiday here, too. :) I'm from Miami, Florida and while I sometimes feel like I'm in Cuba, so far, it's still the USA. :cool: As for my age... probably old enough to be your dad. We'll leave it at that.

Making an autorun CD is not a problem. I can do that with notepad and burning a couple files to a CD. Don't need help there.

When you run flashtools it will be seen in the taskbar. Just tell it to exit.

Not sure what this has to do with anything, but OK.

As far as the sync with music, I have problems myself so I use event sounds (like for buttons).

Let me explain. I have created a slide presentation. Maybe 20-25 photos. Each appears for a short time, all the while a song plays in the background. Timing is important as certain words of the song coincide with certain photos.

My swf is fine. Everything is timed perfectly. When I go to the webpage that runs the swf from my server, everything works fine. The song is perfectly in sync as I designed it.

Now, I want to provide this presentation to certain people on a CD in an executable form. However, the .exe version created by Flashtools doesn't work as well. It starts out OK but it slowly gets out of sync as it goes along until by the end, the song isn't even close to the photos is used to be in perfect sync with.

This is not a simple sound I can attach to a button. Besides, it syncs fine as a swf, it's just the conversion to an .exe by flashtools that causes a problem.

[mjanke]

Originally posted by Fingermonkey
In SAFlashPlayer version 7 (that I got from FLASHPULSE) you can open an .swf and then click File > Create Projector, and it saves the .swf as an Application (projector.exe) file which I can be played on its own without the standard Flash Player . Might this be an option for you?

It appears this is part of one of the Macromedia $$$ flash tools? I looked all over their site and while I see it mentioned, I can't find it available as a download. Looks like if I want to download 75 megs, I can probably get a 30 day free trial?

[Bob Hartzell]

You might try asking FlashTools about the sync problem.

[mjanke]

Originally posted by Bob Hartzell
You might try asking FlashTools about the sync problem.

I tried that by filling out their support form on their website. The email bounced back because their mailbox is full. :)

[tmoore935]

Originally posted by mjanke
It appears this is part of one of the Macromedia $$$ flash tools? I looked all over their site and while I see it mentioned, I can't find it available as a download. Looks like if I want to download 75 megs, I can probably get a 30 day free trial?

http://home.att.net/~picdiversion/hello.exe


I put a link to a projector. All it does is say hello. Save it somewere and try to drag and drop one of your swfs to it. I will not garentee that this works but I have done it. With one pc that I use, everytime I now open a swf in IE, it now automaticly opens in macromedia's projector. And flash MX was never installed. I am using win98 and win2000 at work with IE 5 and 6. At this point, experiment to get it to work, which is how I did it. If you can get it to work, please let me know as projectors seem to be of a lot of interest on some of these forums. Also the latest macromedia's projector is almost one meg in size. if needed, I can take your swf and make the projector, then send it back to you. I can do this with FTP and macromedia flash MX. I hope this helps. I am sure that others have done this also.

Since you live in Florida, can you stop by Rush Limbaugh's house and see if his maid can score some flu vac?:D

[mjanke]

Originally posted by tmoore935
I put a link to a projector. All it does is say hello. Save it somewere and try to drag and drop one of your swfs to it.

That worked. Thanks! I'm not at home and haven't tried it with my problematic swf, so I'll find that out when I get home.

Since you live in Florida, can you stop by Rush Limbaugh's house and see if his maid can score some flu vac?:D

Are you sure you wouldn't like something a little stronger than that. :)

Mike

[tmoore935]

Originally posted by mjanke
That worked. Thanks! I'm not at home and haven't tried it with my problematic swf, so I'll find that out when I get home.


Mike

Let me know because I am curious. I do not know if macromedia intended it but who cares.

[mjanke]

Looks like I'll just have to settle for the fact that playing the movie in an external flash player is not the same as viewing it with IE and the plug-in. There must be some inherent difference because it seems no matter what I do, it's just not the same when played externally.

Thanks for everyone's help but I give in! Looks like I'll just have to have an external player version and add frames in strategic locations to get the timing right in that.

[necromanthus]

Originally posted by mjanke
Thanks for everyone's help but I give in! Looks like I'll just have to have an external player version and add frames in strategic locations to get the timing right in that.

There's no need to do that !
The best solution is to use mySound.position.
The main idea is to check up from "time to time" the sound current time and to start your main movie loops (scenes,parts,whatever ...) according to this value.

And b.t.w. ... there're no problems of anykind with MACROMEDIA's StandAlone FlashPlayers (v6 or v7)
;)

[mjanke]

Originally posted by necromanthus
And b.t.w. ... there're no problems of anykind with MACROMEDIA's StandAlone FlashPlayers (v6 or v7)
;)

I'm sure there's not. Nevertheless, when I play the swf directly, in my browser, not via the 'net but directly off the hard drive, and when I play the swf in the standalone player, off the hard drive, the timing is decidedly different. It's slight, but over 3 minutes, it's about 5 seconds off at the end when played via the standalone player. Not much and maybe this is not something that would normally be noticed, but in the case of what I'm doing, the timing is critical.

So there may be nothing "wrong" with their flash player, but there is something that is creating a difference when playing in the standalone vs. the browser plug-in versions. Maybe it's just not designed to be so precise without doing the checking you mentioned.

I'll look into mySound.position as it sounds like what I need. I'm not sure how that's implemented or really, anything at all about it, but I'll definitely do the research. Thanks!

[necromanthus]

Originally posted by mjanke

I'm sure there's not. Nevertheless, when I play the swf directly, in my browser, not via the 'net but directly off the hard drive, and when I play the swf in the standalone player, off the hard drive, the timing is decidedly different. It's slight, but over 3 minutes, it's about 5 seconds off at the end when played via the standalone player. Not much and maybe this is not something that would normally be noticed, but in the case of what I'm doing, the timing is critical.

So there may be nothing "wrong" with their flash player, but there is something that is creating a difference when playing in the standalone vs. the browser plug-in versions. Maybe it's just not designed to be so precise without doing the checking you mentioned.

I'll look into mySound.position as it sounds like what I need. I'm not sure how that's implemented or really, anything at all about it, but I'll definitely do the research. Thanks!

Few less known things:
1) the SA FlashPlayer works 15-20% faster than the Flash PlugIn.
2) there're two kind of FPS values:
a) the theoretical one
b) the real one (a function of a lot of "variables",such as: processor speed,RAM,OS,resident programs,etc).

So... using common methods,your movie is out of synchro from beginning !

cheers
;)

[mjanke]

Originally posted by necromanthus
1) the SA FlashPlayer works 15-20% faster than the Flash PlugIn.

OK then, there's the answer. I can live with that. And I also agree that there are the other factors you mentioned... processor speed, RAM, etc.

I've looked at that mysound.position and I'm really not clear on how to implement that. Would I have to write an actionscript to do the whole movie?

Or, can I, at certain points, just have something like "don't move on to shape 10 until we're at the xxx millisecond mark in the song." ?? And do that at three or four points within the movie to make sure the images haven't gotten too far ahead of the music? The images don't have to appear precisely to a millisecond position within the music, but it'd be nice if things didn't get too far out of whack. :)

How would I do that?

[w.brants]

onEnterFrame = function(){
if (mySound.position > 15000){
play();
onEnterFrame = null;
}
}
stop();


If you put something like this in the main timeline at certain points, I think it should work.

The example above pauses the movie and starts playing again when the sound position reaches 15 seconds.

[mjanke]

Originally posted by w.brants
If you put something like this in the main timeline at certain points, I think it should work.

Cool! I'll give it a shot. Thanks a million!

[mjanke]

Originally posted by w.brants
The example above pauses the movie and starts playing again when the sound position reaches 15 seconds.

Maybe (probably!) I don't know what I'm doing but that doesn't work like expected. The song continues to play as it should, but the movie stops, permanently, when it hits the frame with that code in it.

What am I misunderstanding or doing wrong?

[gusmus]

Sorry for giving you the original IP, if it hasn't worked out,,,, But I've been using "Flashtools" for a number of years without a single problem (Sound sync or no) I think you should have a look at what you really want to do and work out the best way to do it, (on paper first),,, there is always a solution,, normally right under your nose.,,, Cheers

[mjanke]

FlashTools is a fine program. It's definitely not the problem. I've found some links to various discussions on syncronizing sound with graphics and it appears it's a problem that many have run into. And there have been some very elaborate efforts to get it right, so I'm not feeling so dumb about having the difficulties I'm having. :)

[w.brants]

The code I posted before should work fine if you create a sound object called 'mySound' using actionscript and load an external wav or mp3 file with it's 'loadSound' function.

I don't know if it is possible to access the position of an embedded sound but in that case you might try to sync the movie with the timer.
In the frame the sound starts playing put a line of actionscript codesoundStarted = getTimer();
and change the code I posted before into
onEnterFrame = function(){
if (getTimer() - soundStarted > 15000){
play();
onEnterFrame = null;
}
}
stop();

[mjanke]

Originally posted by w.brants
The code I posted before should work fine if you create a sound object called 'mySound' using actionscript and load an external wav or mp3 file with it's 'loadSound' function.

Ah, there's the problem... you assumed I knew what the hell I was doing. :p I was lucky to be able to figure out where to put that code, let alone know I needed to create a sound object, etc., etc.

Maybe I'll try the timer method. That looks like something I understand. Thanks for your help!

[mjanke]

Originally posted by w.brants
soundStarted = getTimer

I just wanted to say thank you so much for this! It's working out much better than I ever expected. I have much better control of the timing of things than I imagined possible. I can move stuff in the beginning just a few milliseconds or whatever I need without throwing the remainder of the whole timeline off.

And the best part is, it's working identically in an external player and I imagine that differences in other people's computers won't have much if any effect on the timing.

Thanks!

[w.brants]

Glad to hear it works for you :)

I think you are right that it won't make a big difference on what computer the movie is played.

What might cause sync problems - I think - with this method is the combination of streaming sound and a slow connection. I don't know how flash treats streaming sound but I assume that there are gaps in the music if the data doesn't reach the computer in time. Using the position property of a sound object may avoid this kind of problems.
But to be honest I hardly ever work with sounds myself. Maybe Remus can tell.

[necromanthus]

Wilbert's idea (a real time counter) was the second solution.
A good one ...
Unfortunately,the first solution (with sound.position) it doesn't work on KoolMoves.
The reason is the missing symbol-library: the sound-object must be exported for ActionScript in order to work.
But the manic BOB is working hard ...
:p

[mjanke]

Originally posted by w.brants
I don't know how flash treats streaming sound but I assume that there are gaps in the music if the data doesn't reach the computer in time.

When I had the "Streaming" box checked for the audio, the timing was worse in the external player. That was prior to implementing your fix. So I haven't had that set and didn't set it after putting in all the time checks.

It's working. I ain't touching it. :)