Question

I have a function in my swf file: playSound() which I can call via jQuery like so:

$.talkToFlash("interfaceSounds").playSound();

whereas ‘talkToFlash’ simply returns the swf file. This part is well documented on here and works fine.

But, how do I pass a parameter?

I believe in JS this would be:

$.talkToFlash("interfaceSounds").playSound('swish.mp3');

But what do I do in AS3?

I tried amending my initial working functions:

function playSound() {
    var s:swishSound = new swishSound; 
    var channel:SoundChannel = s.play();
}
ExternalInterface.addCallback("playSound", playSound);

with this:

function playSound(mp3file) {
   trace(mp3file);
}

But ‘mp3file’ is just empty. I tried

ExternalInterface.addCallback("playSound", playSound(mp3file));

and other variations of this ‘theme’, but nothing seems to work. Am I just struggling with syntax here or this there more to it? Thanks for your help.

Answer 1

Turns out was correct to start with. The error lied somewhere else, I’d forgotten to embed a font :/

Nevertheless, for those who build a similar thing, here’s the complete Code. I’m also not sure if my method of stopping a track is correct, so any improvements most welcome 🙂

AS3:

import flash.external.ExternalInterface;
import flash.media.Sound;
import flash.media.SoundLoaderContext;
import flash.net.URLRequest;

function playTrack(track_name) {

    var s:Sound = new Sound();
    soundName.text =track_name;
    track_name = '/path/to/mp3/' + track_name + ".mp3";
    var req:URLRequest = new URLRequest(track_name);
    var context:SoundLoaderContext = new SoundLoaderContext(8000, true);
    s.load(req, context);
    s.play();

}

function stopAllTracks() {
SoundMixer.stopAll();
}

ExternalInterface.addCallback("playTrack", playTrack);
ExternalInterface.addCallback("stopAllTracks", stopAllTracks);

And in jQuery:

// play a song
  $.curPlay = '';
  $(".song_play").click(function() {    
    var id = $(this).attr('id');
    song = id.replace('play_', '');
    if(song==$.curPlay){  // stop the current song if the play btn is clicked twice
        $.stop_mp3();
        $.curPlay = '';
        return;
    }

    $.curPlay = song;
    $.play_mp3(song);
});



$.play_mp3 = function(file){ 
    $.stop_mp3();
    $.talkToFlash("interfaceSounds").playTrack(file);   
}

$.stop_mp3 = function(){  
    $.talkToFlash("interfaceSounds").stopAllTracks();   
}




//  movie referencer 
$.talkToFlash = function(swfFile){

  if (window.document[swfFile])   {
      return window.document[swfFile];
  }
  if (navigator.appName.indexOf("Microsoft Internet")==-1){
    if (document.embeds && document.embeds[swfFile])
      return document.embeds[swfFile]; 
  }
  else // if (navigator.appName.indexOf("Microsoft Internet")!=-1)
  {
    return document.getElementById(swfFile);
  }
}

And HTML/PHP:

    <div class='song_play'  id='play_<?=$songID?>'>play</div>

I also have a technique that might be worth sharing as I foundd this very usesful when developing with Flash. You can easily change appearance of the container or burst a cache if you set up some vars in PHP that configure your Flash:

<? 
$swf = "mp3_player.swf?".time();
$w = 1;
$h = 1;

$mp3Player = "<object classid=\"clsid:d27cdb6e-ae6d-11cf-96b8\" 
 codebase = \"http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=9,0,0,0\" 
 width=\"$w\" height=\"$h\" id=\"interfaceSounds\" align=\"middle\">
 <param name=\"allowScriptAccess\" value=\"always\" />
 <param name=\"allowFullScreen\" value=\"false\" />
 <param name=\"movie\"  value=\"/assets/swf/$swf\" />
  <param name=\"quality\" value=\"high\" />
 <embed src=\"/assets/swf/$swf\" quality=\"high\" width=\"$w\" 
 height=\"$h\" name=\"interfaceSounds\" align=\"middle\" 
 allowScriptAccess=\"always\"  allowFullScreen=\"false\"
  type=\"application/x-shockwave-flash\"    
 pluginspage=\"http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer\" />
 </object>";

In your php doc later you just echo it where ever you want:

  <?= $mp3Player ?>