Feature suggestion

[hamishmacd]

Xara has put a lot of work into enabling its users to create simple Flash files, Nav Bars and now entire web sites. If however you want to incorporate Flash elements into your newly created site, it’s necessary to write some code or use a separate html editor in order to do so.

In order to get the correct spacing on the page, I used a rectangle in Xara to represent where I wanted a flash banner to be and then I asked a web designer colleague to show me how to replace that .png with a Flash animation. Whilst it is do-able, for a non-coder like me replacing a .png with a .swf is really not that straightforward. Applying its intuitively flexible workflow to Flash enabled Xara users quickly to get good results without the career changing decision to learn vastly more complex programmes.

I wonder if Xara couldn’t partially automate the processes of combining and exporting Flash and HTML? Could Xara not somehow ‘tag’ some elements on the page as Flash elements? Then when exporting the page as html, it could write the necessary code to embed and correctly position them. It would then just be a case of exporting the Flash files of the same dimensions from a separate animation into the correct folder.

This is probably vastly more complex to implement that could ever know. I’d probably get a better insight if I just went off and learned a bit more html. But then if that was my bag I wouldn’t love Xara for all the reasons I do.

It’s good to see Xara steadily making improvements. Lots of easy to use useful things for the hobbyist. Improving things under the bonnet for the more demanding users. The easy workflow and flexible functionality in Xara suits me down to the ground. The improvements in .pdf import and the much anticipated repel-text function in my opinion make this upgrade a must.

[Odat]

Presumably it would be easy to do given that you can currently name an object as JPG or PNG to control wether the exported image is a jpeg or a png file.

If that were extended so that you could name an object FLASH=filename.swf or something similar, the exporter could use that information to output a DIV that it could fill with the proper code to embed a flash file of the same dimensions as the original object.

I say "Presumably" because it would seem that if the code that walks the document tree to export parts already knows that some objects need to be handled differently in the HTML export, then adding in another similar tag should be fairly easy to do.

[Charles Moir]

Yes we're looking this exact suggestion as a sort of quick and dirty way to allow embedded Flash.

[w00dy]

I did exactly as "hamishmacd" suggested to produce:

www.bostoninternet.co.uk/xara4/test3.html

which embeds a flash form into one of the X4 web templates. I could have made it fit nicely but just wanted to see how easy it was. Once you've got the right co-ordinates of the <div> for the Flash, it's very easy and if Xara can simplify this process for non-coders, the possibilities really open up. As well as inserting some X4 Flash objects, it opens up the possibility to insert third party Flash objects from people like CoffeeCup.. forms, streaming video, streamed audio, etc. Their add-on applications are really easy to use as they generate the Flash code to copy and paste.

[hamishmacd]

That's great news Charles. And w00dy, I agree with you. This really is an extremely exciting development. It opens up a world of possibilities for Xara users.

There were two Flash developers in a pub, no this isn’t a geek joke, I was with them last night. They were telling me that as recently as last month SWFobject 2.0 was released under the GNU General Public Licence. It’s a JavaScript API that sets the new standard for embedding Flash content by providing a complete tool set for embedding SWF files and retrieving Flash Player information. There’s more info here http://code.google.com/p/swfobject/wiki/SWFObject_2_0_documentation and here http://blog.deconcept.com/swfobject/

Seriously, I really hope that this is the quick and dirty solution alluded to to in the previous post as it doesn't look dirty to me at all. Quite the contrary.

I'm itching to get started with this one. I don't know whether there would be any beta testing opportunities for this but if so just show me where to sign and sign me up.

[Odat]

I was going to mention something similar. It would be good if it used something like swfobject or a derivative to place the flash. If it just writes an embed tag, then IE and other browsers are forced to not display the flash until the user activates it by clicking on it (due to a patent problem with Eolas).

I use swfobject myself and it's a great way to embed flash easily in your page and at the same time make sure that it works cross browser.

[handrawn]

not my field - but I seem to recall reading in press that this patent problem had been resolved?

[Odat]

My memory of the whole thing is a bit hazy, but I think this is the actual solution to the problem. What was considered infringing on the patent is the creation of a web page with "live" or "dynamic" content, like a flash plugin.

To get around that they had to modify the browser so that plugins like that just display as a plain rectangle that tell you to click them, and then once you do they load and act as expected, thus no longer being "live" or "dynamic" in nature. However, that's a big pain in the butt and looks ugly. And for web applications it's even worse.

What the patent doesn't cover is scripting languages or dynamically generated pages having such content. So the common trick to get around the problem became using javascript or some other scripting language to run at page load time and dynamically modify the document to include the embed tag. By doing that it can be enabled right away and not infringe on anything.

[handrawn]

thanks for that

I seemed to remember MS announcing that the click to view would no longer be in operation after a point in time soon

But thinking about it that may have been active X...

Don't use IE much except were FFox can't [yet] go

[Odat]

I tend to agree. Unfortunately at work me and my coworker are the only ones that run firefox. The rest of the company is strictly a microsoft shop (makes things interesting, as we run linux ) so all of the web pages that I create have to work in IE.

As a result I make a token effort to make sure my personal pages display somewhat properly under IE, but I don't obsess about it as much.