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Flash Editing an existing Flash template

Discussion in 'Web Development' started by PhotoXe, Nov 10, 2010.

  1. PhotoXe

    PhotoXe New Member

    Well I have finally got my Flash website up and running after hours of pain-staking editing.

    Changing the sound files.
    Adding a basic thumbnail gallery.
    Editing the Colour Scheme.
    Changing the Font size, colour and type.
    Adding extra Pages.
    Adding extra Buttons.
    Editing text
    Editing the Galleries tfile.
    Editing the sites HTML file.
    Editing the sites Contact PHP file.
    Editing the sites Config XML file.
    Uploading the site and getting it running smoothly.

    www.exposedemotion.co.uk

    Tommorow I will start adding information below on how I did it all including links to relevent material etc.
     
    1 person likes this.
  2. ishkey

    ishkey Moderator, Logos, Sports Crests Staff Member Verified Member

    I think you have an infinite loop in the loading of your Galleries as all I get is the 100% loading over and over at high speed. Then after clicking other menu items and coming back to the Galleries there is a frame where the picture should be with left/right arrows.
     
  3. PhotoXe

    PhotoXe New Member


    That is due to there not currently being any images present other than plain white space I guess.

    Being flash driven some peoples computers are obviously not as fast as others, in your case yours is fast enough to load images quick.

    If your pc is fast the loader will jump from 0% to 100% in the matter of a second, if its a slower pc it will load slower once there is an image more graphically detailed than a plain white canvas present.

    Each of the galleries has a frame with left and right arrows, let me know if I have misunderstood anything.
     
  4. PhotoXe

    PhotoXe New Member

    First things first, Backup your template and name it appropriately.

    Editing your template: First off you need to know which software program created your existing template as this to totally relevent, My template was created using 'Adobe Flash 8' but one thing to point out is that there is very little difference between Adobe Flash 8 and Adobe Flash CS so this thread is very much helpful to both Flash 8 and flash CS users.

    With this software you can edit your websites 'FLA' file which is pretty much your whole website minus a few things.

    Creating additional buttons: there are two approaches and they are cloning an already existing button, which is good when you want to save time and keep your buttons looking the same.

    Or

    Theres the creating of a new button or buttons which obviously will take a bit longer, this tutorial below will help you master that as it did for me.

    Animated Buttons like the orange coloured ones present on my website are within a Movie Clip so that is what your looking for when wanting to clone a button unless the button is not animated, if not animated then you would have to look for the button in a Bitmap image and find it within your template by looking for the layer they are present on.

    Think of your template as having many layers of paper.

    How to Create Additional Buttons for a Flash Template Using Adobe Flash


    How to create Next and Previous buttons and simple gallery 'video tutorials':

    This is a video tutorial of a nice chap showing you how to create next and previous buttons and also how to create a simple but effective photo gallery or galleries.

    YouTube - Next/Prev Buttons for Photo Gallery: Flash Tutorial

    YouTube - Photo Gallery and Thumbnails: Flash Tutorial!
     
  5. PhotoXe

    PhotoXe New Member

  6. PhotoXe

    PhotoXe New Member

    Changing and Adding text: after locating your Content movie Clip you will be able to drag the timeline across from left to right and access each page.

    This part is pretty easy and all you need to do is click on the area of the page where the text exists and just keep clicking until you access the text box and edit.

    Editing Text Video Tutorial
    Examples Of Customization: Adobe Flash: How to find and edit any text in any flash file

    In the case of animated button text you will have to locate its own Movie Clip seperate to the content Movie Clip.
     
  7. PhotoXe

    PhotoXe New Member

    How to Access and Edit HTML, XML and PHP files.

    Simple really, download a free bit of editing software named: Notepad++

    Notepad++ | 5.8.3
     
  8. PhotoXe

    PhotoXe New Member

    Website Contact Form settings:

    Editing your form configuration XML file so that your contact form within your website directs all messages to your email address.

    You should see something similar to this below when editing the XML file and the only parts you should really have to edit usually are in red:

    <!--
    Please read this information to learn how to set up the contact form integrated
    into the template.

    This readme file explains in details the meaning of the settings that can be
    done in the fcContactFormConfiguration.xml configuration file.

    It is recommended for you to use an XML editor to make changes to this file
    because it’s less possible to make an error in the markup which can cause to
    a not working contact form.
    -->
    <contactFormConfiguration>

    <!--
    An e-mail address which will be used to receive messages from your contact form.
    You can specify several e-mail addresses separating them with a comma.
    For example: first_email@domain.com, second_email@domain.com, third@domain.com
    -->
    <emailTo>joeblogg@hotmail.co.uk</emailTo>

    <!--
    A server script type which will process sending e-mails. It depends on your
    hosting and in the current version of the contact form it is allowed to use
    two types: php (Apache, PHP Hosting); asp (IIS web server, ASP).
    -->
    <serverProcessorType>php</serverProcessorType>

    <!--
    A name of the script file which process sending e-mails on your server (without
    extension). The name contact is used by default.
    -->
    <serverProcessorFileName>contact</serverProcessorFileName>

    <!--
    Set whether to validate only required fields (true/false). The default value is
    true which means the not required fields of your contact form will not be validated.
    For example if the e-mail field of your form is set as not required (imagine it)
    the form will be processed even if the user types in an incorrect e-mail address.
    -->
    <validateRequiredOnly>false</validateRequiredOnly>

    <!--
    Set whether to submit the form when the Enter key is pressed even if the focus is
    not on the Submit button (true/false).
    -->
    <submitFormOnEnter>false</submitFormOnEnter>

    <!--
    Text showing to the user when the form is submitted without any errors.
    -->
    <messageSentText>Thank you for contacting me, I will get back to you as soon as possible.</messageSentText>

    <!--
    Text showing in case the form is not submitted because of a server error.
    -->
    <messageSentFailedText>Sorry, your message couldn't be sent</messageSentFailedText>

    <!--
    Text your visitor will see while waiting till the processing is over.
    -->
    <formProcessingText>processing...</formProcessingText>

    <!--
    Your SMTP server (for ASP only).
    -->
    <smtpServer>localhost</smtpServer>

    >

    The Xml is usually longer than this but to avoid creating an extra long post, ive cropped it short and you only really need to see this part to understand what Im trying to say.
     
  9. PhotoXe

    PhotoXe New Member

    Uploading your website: but when you visit your domain website address or sub-domain website address it is blank or you get an error.

    Usually its down to one of two problems:

    You have either not uploaded it completely and there are files missing

    Or

    You have not renamed your websites HTML file to 'index.html'
     
  10. PhotoXe

    PhotoXe New Member

    Editing your galleries tfile so that your gallery links to the directory or directories where your images are kept.

    If you have more than one gallery then its best if you give each gallery its own folder and name it appropriately which is where you will upload and store that galleries images.

    Again access tfile XML file in Notepad++ or whatever editor your using and edit the following in red:

    <content>
    <gallery>
    <section>
    <image imageUrl="Wedding/tfile_pic1_1.jpg" link="http://www.joebloggs.co.uk"/>
    <image imageUrl="Wedding/tfile_pic1_2.jpg" link="http://www.joebloggs.co.uk"/>
    <image imageUrl="Wedding/tfile_pic1_3.jpg" link="http://www.joebloggs.co.uk"/>
    <image imageUrl="Wedding/tfile_pic1_4.jpg" link="http://www.joebloggs.co.uk"/>
    </section>

    <section>
    <image imageUrl="Portrait/tfile_pic2_1.jpg" link="http://www.joebloggs.co.uk"/>
    <image imageUrl="Portrait/tfile_pic2_2.jpg" link="http://www.joebloggs.co.uk"/>

    And so on and so on.

    If you look at the last line above you see Portrait/tfile_pic2_2.jpg, Portrait/ being the folder directory dedicated to the portrait gallery and tfile_pic2_2.jpg being the name of the image inside the folder directory.

    Your actively telling your gallery to search your website for a folder named Portrait then the image inside the folder and show it.
     
  11. PhotoXe

    PhotoXe New Member

  12. PhotoXe

    PhotoXe New Member

    Common Mistakes when uploading Flash templates to Hosting Account:

    FLA file: does not need to be uploaded to your hosting account, this file is purely for editing your template only.

    Once you have edited your template via the FLA file, all you need to do is make sure to save your work.

    The only files you need upload are the:

    HTML file ( rename to 'index.html' once uploaded)
    SWF files (all swf files)
    Folder Directories (these would be your gallery folders etc)
    ASP file (contact file)
    PHP file (contact file)
    XML files (form structure and form config file)
    XML file (Gallery or Galleries file)

    Some Flash templates are self centering meaning they re-position themselves to center screen to accomodate all types of screen sizes.

    I had an issue with my flash template not centering itself due to a banner being present at the top of the webpage, after spending time racking my brain as to why it was leaning to the left side and not centering, it suddenly dawned on me.

    Maybe it was the banner causing the issue, so I upgraded to paid hosting and got rid of the banner and wham, my website aligned and centered.

    exposedemotion.co.uk < now centered