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Thread: Updateable dynamic .exe

  1. #1
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    Updateable dynamic .exe

    I was approached by a client than needs a CD demo done for his stock audio company. The CD will feature all of their current CD's (over 60) and 15sec of each track on all CD's. The catch is he wants the ability to add on to the demo new CD's and tracks because they develop 1-2 CD's a month, with out having to go to us to change the .exe file each time.

    I know there has to be a method, but I can't find one. I am getting better at Actionscripting but my knowledge is not there yet.

    My idea would be to have:

    1. Products MC that would be in scrollable plan.

    2. All CD MC's will be loaded into Products MC.

    3. In CD MC would be all of the track.mp3's

    4. All variables will be stored in a .txt file used to duplicate and name all of the CD MC's

    5. Another .txt file will be used to load CD cover art.jpg, text information of CD, track names, and location of .mp3's to load

    Am I on the right track?
    Please help.

  2. #2
    Dare to Dream
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    Hi, yeah, you're on the right track. I did a similar project where we used txt files to store all of the variables and then had an update "button" in the projector that would simply try and download a new txt file from the server with upto-date information (in my case, DVD titles). However, this became a bit messy, because when you try and do a normal download using getURL, you get an instance of IE opening and then the ugly windows dowload box, and then the user has to know eher to save the txt file on their system so that the projector can find it correctly.

    In the end, we opted to use Flash Studio, which I highly recommend. We built our projector exactly the same way but this time used the gethttp file command(which silently downloads any file to any directory you specify) and also used the ability to display html pages inside the browser to have a section which would check for an internet connection and then display a HTML page (which was on our server) inside our projector, the best part being that we could update this page with information anytime. It's certainly more professional and you are not depending on the user to know what to do, when (lets face it) they usually don't have a clue!

    Not sure if you've tried Flash Studio already but if not, download a copy from www.multidmedia.com - (you'll need to download the PRO version to use the gethttp fscommands)

    Good luck!

  3. #3
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    Yeah, its certainly no small talk! I write things like this at work (albeit not flash UI, and much much bigger scale - grocery retailer's entire rich content)

    Here's the basic principle - simplified a whole lot.... Its gonna take a fir amount of programming knowledge.

    1) Server maintains a cache of the most recent data, and preferably what version it is at.

    2) When a client installation requests an update it sends the request accompanied by the current data revision that this client posseses. If the number is less than the current revision on the server, the new data is sent, otherwise no update is sent.

    Now, this works fine when your data is, say, 1Mb or less in total. Each new update will take the client no more than 10 minutes even on the slowest of connections. However once the total size of the data gets big and each update requires the client install to download a great big file - most of which they already have - you run into problems.

    Dont worry though! there's always a solution. The catelogue that we update would be somewhere in the region of 100Mb downloads each time for the client if there wasnt some neat tricks

    For me to help you more, if you need more help, ill need the following info.

    Current size of the data - if its in a textfile just the filesize will do - number of entries is irrelevant. If its in a DB then number of records is good.

    Projected size of data, long term. Say you have 50 CD's at the moment and its 200Kb of data. Easy calc.... 1CD~4Kb therefore at 2 per month for 10 years (you never know) thats another 120 CD at 4Kb each = 480Kb plus what you have is a grand total of about 700Kb.

    Is it just additions to client data, or updates and deletions too.
    C#ley?

  4. #4
    Senior Member
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    the txt part of this would not be hard at all, I made a program called county live that does alot of this, instead of loading a url I use load variables, have each of my txt boxes with variable names so the datat goes into the right place. Doing it this way you can make your client a nice looking interface that the have then the make the changes for there titles and such and load them up with a click of a button. The sound part and the jpg part would be a problem for me because I use flash 5 and besides makeing these itams into a swf and loading them to the server I don't know of another way around that.

  5. #5
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    Sorry for the confusion. None of the files can be stored on a server. All data files and .txt files have to be stored on the CD. If anyone has suggestions let me know.

    I am working on a prototype that I will publish after it is done.

  6. #6
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    Let me see If I have this idea yet. You are going to make a CD have all this information on it. Then they want to be able to add new information each month and burn a new CD every time? That is what I think you are saying because unless every one of there customers has a CDRW at home then they will not be able to just send out updates to write to the CD. You could make a CD that is loaded onto a customers harddrive then they can send out updates by CD, 3.5 or the web and just overwrite the files that were there. Any decent compiler will give you those options. Sorry if I am still not understanding but I realy am trying

  7. #7
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    Sorry if I am not very clear.

    Essentually the client "recording studio" wants to issue a demo Autorun CD to prospect clients. Once my client creates a new music album they want to add the information and clips of the tracks to demo for any new demos they send out.

    For example they will send out a "October" demo that has samples from the 26 albums they have. Next month they will send out a "November" demo that has the 26 albums + the 2 new albums they created this month.

    To sum it all up each time they send out a demo they want all of their current albums to be featured.

  8. #8
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    The whole prototype that I am working on is based on .txt files that will be loaded into flash as arrays that are used to dynamiclly create all of the information and to reference a file that would contain "skins" for album movie clip. These "skins" will include .txt files to state album title and description, mp3 files, and .jpeg files that will be brought into the movie clip.

    Follow? It gets very confusing for me trying to make it very easy for the client to update this.

  9. #9
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    Well the txt part is a easy thing to do, but, I still think you are going to have problems (and I might be wrong) because the sound clips will have to be made into swf's then named so you can load them into your projector. So either you are going to have to do this each month for you client or the are going to have to program themselves in flash to do this. Like I said thoe, I do not use flash MX so there might be something new in there that lets you import the mp3's with out makeing them into swf's.
    good luck, let me know when you get this working I would love to see it.

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