Question

I have 20 different flash files that i need to play randomly when a user enters a zip code. I am done with the project, but the way I have done it is I think could have been done a lot better. I have 20 different aspx files that have the flash object. I redirect users to different aspx files based on the random number using Random class. Is there a way to just have one aspx file where the param value and data could be passed using a variable. That way, its easier to maintain and i don’t have to go to 20 different aspx files to update anything. Here is what the flash object looks like.

<object classid="clsid:d27cdb6e-ae6d-11cf-96b8-444553540000" width="960" height="952"
            id="HOT" align="middle">
            <param name="movie" value="../FlashFiles/FirstTime/HOT_00.swf" />
            <param name="quality" value="high" />
            <param name="bgcolor" value="#000000" />
            <param name="play" value="true" />
            <param name="loop" value="true" />
            <param name="wmode" value="transparent" />
            <param name="scale" value="showall" />
            <param name="menu" value="true" />
            <param name="devicefont" value="false" />
            <param name="salign" value="" />
            <param name="allowScriptAccess" value="sameDomain" />
            <!--[if !IE]>-->
            <object type="application/x-shockwave-flash" data="../FlashFiles/FirstTime/HOT_00.swf" width="960" height="952">
                <param name="movie" value="HOT.swf" />
                <param name="quality" value="high" />
                <param name="bgcolor" value="#000000" />
                <param name="play" value="true" />
                <param name="loop" value="true" />
                <param name="wmode" value="transparent" />
                <param name="scale" value="showall" />
                <param name="menu" value="true" />
                <param name="devicefont" value="false" />
                <param name="salign" value="" />
                <param name="allowScriptAccess" value="sameDomain" />
                <!--<![endif]-->
                <a href="http://www.adobe.com/go/getflash">
                    <img src="http://www.adobe.com/images/shared/download_buttons/get_flash_player.gif"
                        alt="Get Adobe Flash player" />
                </a>
                <!--[if !IE]>-->
            </object>
            <!--<![endif]-->
        </object>

Please advise!! Thanks!

Answer 1

SwfObject is commonly used to write the flash tag from JavaScript, passing any necessary parameters. It’s a bit cleaner than writing the tag manually. You can emebed the name of the flash movie by a server side call as shown below, or use pure JavaScript.

var flashvars = {};;
flashvars.basePath = "/";

var params = {};
params.allowScriptAccess = "always";
params.base = "/";
params.bgcolor = "#000000";             
params.wmode = "transparent";
params.scale = "noscale";
params.salign = 'tr';

swfobject.embedSWF("<%= GetRandomFlashMove() %>", 
                   "BaseLoader",
                   "976",
                   "561",
                   "10.0.0",
                   "/expressInstall.swf",
                   flashvars, params);