Flash

Flash content can easily be included in your courses.

General instructions for insertion

If you have the filter for the Flash multimedia plugin enabled then simply linking to the file in an HTML area such as a label, HTML block or section description will also display the Flash file inline. At the moment all flash files will play at the same size site-wide by default.

You can use HTML code and the object tag to set individual movie sizes which will work with most browsers except Microsoft's Internet Explorer.

<object width="600" height="400" classid="clsid:D27CDB6E-AE6D-11cf-96B8-444553540000"
   codebase=
 "http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=6,0,0,0">
  <param name="movie" value="http://yoursite.org/file.php/2/movie.swf" />
  <param name="quality" value="high" /> <embed width="600" height="400" 
 src="http://yoursite.org/file.php/2/movie.swf" quality="high" 
 type="application/x-shockwave-flash" 
 pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer" /></object>

TIP: If using the .swf filter you can control display size by adding the following parameters to the end of the link to specify size: ?d=widthxheight (for example ?d=600x400 where the image is 600 pixels wide 400 pixels high). You can use up to 3 characters for the width and the height, plus an optional % symbol at the end.

TIP: There are also other ways to achieve sizing control. See the Size of embedded Flash forum posts for some hacks.

Update 2008

The following code works in IE7 and Firefox 3:

<embed width="600" height="400" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" 
src="http://YOURSITE.com/path/to/your/swffile/swf" 
id="myFlashId" bgcolor="#ffffff" quality="high" wmode="opaque" />

Insert flash into a lesson page

Inserting a Flash file into a lesson page (either a branch or question page) is similar to the above.

1. Publish the SWF and HTML upload the SWF to a central location on your server.
2. Then copy and paste the HTML code (between the object tags) and
3. place that in the HTML side of your question (switch to HTML view).
4. Change the value in your HTML code
   1. Example: Change this <param name="movie" value="MyFlashFile.swf" to this <param name="movie" value="http://www.myserver.com/flash_files/MyFlashFile.swf"
5. Repeat the same step, but change the src instead.
   1. Example:<embed src="http://www.myserver.com/flash_files/MyFlashFile.swf"
6. Save the question

Some external links to Flash file generating programs

This is not a comprehensive list nor an endorsement of any product.

• Open Office, an open source program can export-create a Flash swf file in Impress, the presentation module. Very basic output.
• Adobe/Macromedia Flash site "The" serious program, now owned by Adobe and part of their Creative Suite.
• Wink freeware program. Basic output functions, steps up from OO Impress but not even close to Adobe Flash.
• Open Source Flash Organization list of projects probably best viewed by developers, not teachers

See also

• Flash_module How to install a Flash plugin module.
• Files for teachers
• Filters part of the administration block
• Multimedia plugin vs object embed forum discussion
• Size of embedded Flash forum discussion
• Development:SWF SWF Activity Module