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flash data integration : Flash presentation manager for broadcast to conference TV screens ... pre-loading



tim.stokes NO[at]SPAM freshfmmanchester.co.uk
2/17/2005 5:48:03 AM
Hello!

I am trying to find pointers for the following project!

ANY help much appreciated!

Cheers,
Tim

=============================

The Interactive Presentation is broadcast to TV screens during a
conference.

I am using Flash MX Pro 2004

The elements of the presentation will be:
- Presentations
- Slides (within a particular presentation)
- Elements (overlaid over a presentation - e.g. SMS ticker
bar, or announcements)


Presentations are controlled by the Loader, which every 5 seconds
should determine whether the Presentation has changed, and of so, load
a new movie. This should be done by giving the new movie time to
pre-load its data, and then cross-fade.

IMAGE:
http://www.premierinteractive.org.uk/ipflash1/main-loader1.gif


Each presentation type (e.g. Slide show, blank screen, or colour bars)
has a separate SWF movie which will be loaded by the Loader. It will
contain parameters which enable it to lookup its data from the
WSDL/XML. Each slide has a duration which is stored in the slide
table. Once the duration is 5 seconds from being reached, the new
slide should pre-load its data, and then cross-fade.

IMAGE:
http://www.premierinteractive.org.uk/ipflash1/pres-1.gif


There are elements which are turned on and off during presentations.
E.g. SMS ticker bar. These have specifications in an element table -
name, size, SWF location, on/off status. If an element is turned on,
the element should pre-load its data and then being the re-sizing
transition... The main slide text should be scaled down, and the
element window faded in.


IMAGE:
http://www.premierinteractive.org.uk/ipflash1/element-listen1.gif


I have tested in very rough format connecting with my Cold Fusion
driven WSDL, and it works fine. There is a 1 to 2 second delay in
loading the data though (this is tested and will be run on 1MB ADSL
(1:50), with a high spec server and connection).

I don't know much about Action Script nor Java Script. My skills lie
mainly in ASP (VB), ColdFusion and MS SQL.

The main areas I can immediately see I need guidance in are:
- Pre-loading so that data has a chance to load!!!
- How to get the Loader to wait 5, get the presentation ID, check
against stored ID, if different store the new ID, pre-load the new SWF
in the background, cross-fade.
- How to get the next slides to pre-load, cross-fade, wait
- Checking that an element hasn't be turned on/off, and if so,
pre-load, re-size and cross-fade
- I have Title, and Content fields to display in slides. I can only
get the data to display in ‘Label' components, and I can't use text
formatting on them. I can use hard coded HTML in the data field, but
don't want to do that. How can I format them? Another component?


Keywords:
Preload preloader preloading pre-load pre-loading buffer cross-fade
crossfade wsdl xml coldfusion cold-fusion cfml macromedia flash mx
2004 pro professional data source ms sql mssql ms-sql action script
Reaps
2/18/2005 12:32:49 AM

You can actually run a flash movie in microsoft powerpoint.... did you know
that....

Reaps

[quoted text, click to view]

Tim Stokes
2/18/2005 3:11:44 AM
Reaps,

Yeah I've looked into that, but we really want to run this solely with
Flash Player.

Do you have any pointers for information?

Cheers,
Tim
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