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I am writing a CD-Rom demo CD, and need a button to launch an external file (a .mov movie) - could anyone please advise me how to do this, it would be greatly appreciated! :o)

Thanks for your time.

I've tried the Flash Beta Tools in Flash 5.0. The CD Browser and text messages display fine, but launching external applications does not!
I'm running windows millenium (which I believe is similar to windows '98) - can anyone please help?! I can't believe there isn't a straight forward way to launch external files. I can't write an interactive stand-alone projector with no video. :o(

It's kind of crude, but I found a tutorial and created a .bat file, calling it with the FScommand. It works okay, but if anyone knows of a better way to do it please let me know. Thanks! :)

I've wrestled with this problem too but in the end I used DefaultApp with Flash 4....the only other way is to use jugglor but that's gonna cost $$$.

With exec (FS Command) you can run ext application, just write the path:

/Samplefolder/application.exe

or just
application.exe

But the application must be in the same folder or in a parent folder. this mean that your application can't be on your Harddisk if you are launching the flash player on a cd rom...
Do you understand something?
Sorry for my bad English!!!

write me for an example, but i think it's not necessary 'cause is very simple...

bye bye

elvis

Thanks for the mails. Unfortunately I don't have the £££ to spend. :o(

Elvis, if I try linking the .mov file directly it refuses to open. Yet if I open a .bat file with

@echo off
start movietest.mov

The dos window launches the movietest.mov file. I don't know why this should be.

Gavin.

Well if there's a problem with my program.. i need to know what..

But let me clarify what I learned while investigating flash 5 and my program.. My initial testing with my program and Flash 5 was just to open my example.fla and publish and see that everything works.. but on closer examination based on your reporting problems here..

I've learned that you can't use & between charachter 9 instead you use add instead of & so in truth all charachter (9) statements need to be written like this..

add Chr(9) add

To better illustraute as always.. a screenshot :)
http://theemaster.bizland.com/flash5actions.gif

Thanks for the info. I'll have to give it a shot.
However, I am thinking: doesn't your program basically do the same thing as a .bat file to launch an application, or is there a difference?

Pretty much the same thing as the .bat file but..

- Minus the ugly dos window
- The program features a true cdrom browse.. (you can't do that with a .bat not really)
- You can set certain display settings as to where the window will come up or which one will be active..
- You can set command line parameters to the executable that will open the associated file type.. (I don't think you can pull this one off with a .bat)

Note: I still haven't fixed the fact that cdrom browse forces you to place the executable on the root of the cd :(

If you really want to know what the program can do.. I suggest you look at the example.. as I'm a big believer in showing and doing by example :)
[Edited by The Master on 10-30-2000 at 05:47 PM]

Thanks,

It would be quite useful to get rid of the dos window - I'll see if your utility works okay on my machine with Flash 5.
The browse feature could possibly prove useful to me too.

i have the the problem,can u send me the smaple file
please ~~

my email [email protected]

You could do the video in Director 7/8 and then call off the director.exe from Flash using FS Command?

To be honest I don't know that it would make much difference for me to use Director or Flash. I like the fact you can add animation to a quicktime movie and then export the finished product as a QT mov, but then it's also more rigid than Director in many respects.

Quote:

---

If you want to open a pdf or a ppt file or any other file, do I need to put the name of the program or put the name you used, which was ftoolapp?

---

I've learned one more thing about the differences in flash 5 to 4 so far I've found if you want to refer to a folder in a expression statement you need to use / not \

This is a pretty odd little thing because of course when you open a flash 4 file which already has expression statements with \ flash 5 allows that to work for folders..

I assume there's probably more then one work around for this problem.. so I let you know if I find more the one.. :)

To better illustrate as I always do a screenshot..
http://theemaster.bizland.com/flash5actions2.gif

To explain how my program works I'd have to refer to command line syntax or in the old days DOS :)

My program is specifically meant for the command line.. though it works in other ways as well..

If you where to say place my program ftoolapp on your root c: drive and then place a file called a.txt there as well..

You could open up Ms-Dos Prompt or Command Line and from the c: root you could use this command "ftoolapp a.txt" and the file would open in the default editor..

This same operation could also be done from Start, Run.. where you would want to type "c:\ftoolapp a.txt"

When making a call from flash the first variable must be my program then the 2nd part of the command line statement is the variable in this case my program interprets the 2nd variable as the file name.. (and it also looks for \browse but that's a separate thing)

I hope this is a simplified explanation of how it works.. I highly suggest you play with the FS Command exec statements in my program..
[Edited by The Master on 11-01-2000 at 04:02 PM]

Thanks for that, I'll keep note.
It does seem very strange why one version of flash uses '\' and the other '/' !!!

Since I want a program from another drive in another directory or run it from the cd, do I have to put the program on the same location the files are? Because I tried putting the programs on the same directory as my executable and my files, but they won't open. Your example is the only one that works, but my true program doesn't work with those variables. What else can I do?

You can specify by drive and directory just remember if it's flash 5 to use the / for going to directory..
and also remember that if your distributing this program D: might not be there cdrom drive and that C: might not be there hard drive (though it usually is)

I suggest you spend some time playing with command line syntax.. just place my program in a easy to find directory and use the following commands to move through MS-Dos Prompt/Command Prompt

CD is a Change Directory

So if the command prompt tells you your at C:\windows>

Then simply type

cd system [ENTER]

to change directory to C:\Windows\System>

Cd.. works to move you down one directory

So if you where at..

C:\Windows\System>

Cd.. [ENTER]

To return to C:\Windows>

The last command you might ever need know :)

Would be DIR

DIR is for Directory it just basically lists of all possible directory's..

so if you type

dir [ENTER]

The reason why you might need to use DIR is MS-DOS Prompt doesn't really like spaces so you may have to look up special names for each directory like for instance the Program Files directory is really Progra~1 in MS-DOS Prompt..

So how does this help.. well let's say you get to my program directory at the Prompt and you type

ftoolapp [ENTER]

Well that command just started my program but because my program had no variable's it just opened itself and closed itself..

So if you where to type

ftoolapp C:\windows\notepad.exe [ENTER]

Notepad should open up.. unless you use Windows NT 4.0, or 2000 or your windows directory is called something else :)

To better illustrate a screenshot.. :)
http://theemaster.bizland.com/commandlinesyntax.gif

And my program can be called from Start, Run as well.. if you know the exact path and file name... for instance where I keep it is in D:\Transport\Flashtools

So from Start, Run I could call this..
D:\Transport\Flashtools\ftoolapp.exe c:\windows\notepad.exe

To better illustrate a screenshot.. :)
http://theemaster.bizland.com/startrunftoolapp.gif

One more thing if you really are unfamiliar with locations and drive letter I highly suggest you turn on this feature in Windows 2000, ME and possibly 98 ;)
http://theemaster.bizland.com/displayfullpath.gif

Ok so what I've gotten from this forum is the idea that you have to download a special program to open a .mov file. Now there may be something I'm missing, but why don't you just use DOS to open the .mov file? It would be really simple and the file would open with the program it's associated with on the user's computer, thus meaning you could open just about any file. I tried opening several different file types and they all work well. But, again, there may be something I missed here. Despite that, I want to show you what I mean about DOS opening any file. I made a little EXE for you to download.. please let me know if anyone has any problems :)

http://eqsimx.hypermart.net/files/DosOpen.zip - 593KB ( Sorry.. used imported Bitmaps :p )

Using the command processor, COMMAND.COM, to open files will only work with Win9x machines and only as long as COMMAND.COM has not been moved or deleted (as is often done to security harden a machine).

In WinNT COMMAND.COM exists but not in the same place as on Win9x and the default command processor is CMD.EXE not COMMAND.COM.

Unless you can build the logic into your projector to detect the OS and verify that the command processor exists where you expect it, relying on this in your projectors is not highly recommended.