Calling Flash Movies?

[Peter Hoyt]

Hi,

Has anyone experienced problems calling Flash movies in Toolbook 8.9? I've had such intermittent problems doing so when I use the ShockwaveFlash object that I've stopped using it unless I have no other choice. For example, when running the same lesson, from the same server, two different machines (configured identically) will act differently. One will load it immediately and the other will never load it. We've also had the problem of the same Flash movie used on two pages will load the first time but not the second time.

In one solution I'm using, I used a web page placeholder object and point to another page with the desired Flash movie. That works fine if the movie is just being watched. But if the student has to interact with it and Toolbook needs to collect data from the Flash movie, this method doesn't work. When I do use this work-around, it works flawlessly and the Flash movie loads just as quick as you'd expect on every computer, 100% of the time.

Has anyone else experienced behavior like this? In version 8.9 or any of the newer versions?

TIA

Peter H

[Clifton Sleger]

Hi Peter,

You might try the JavaScript PowerPac for ToolBook for this issue. It
has a function called pgLoadFlashMovie(). It uses a different load
mechanism for flash movies. You just draw a field object on your page
and attach the function with the server path to the movie. If you use
the DHTML Export Tree Manager it is easy to ensure that your movie files
will be available after export.

If it solves your problem ... Great! Otherwise there is no issue with
giving it a try as it has a 12 day trial use period.

The PowerPac works with all ToolBook versions from v8.9 through 10.0!

Here are the links:
To get the trial use link, just visit the buy it now page:
http://www.pgsoftwaretools.com/index.html?nav=buyPP

Or to look at the function you may need to use, just visit the complete
tutorial at:
http://www.pgsoftwaretools.com/tutorials/index.html?nav=p24
(The entire tutorial was developed using PowerPac functions.)

The 12 day trial can be downloaded from the tutorial as well.

Hope this helps a little.
Clifton Sleger
PG Software Development

[Peter Hoyt]

Thanks for the idea. I've been meaning to take a look at the JavaScript
PowerPac so this may be a good reason to do so.

However, I wouldn't be able to tell if it really solved the problem because
I can't reliably reproduce the problem. At the moment, the problem is on the
other side of the planet so I can't even get on the system to try a solution
on the classroom server.

Isn't technology fun... :-)

Thanks,
Peter H.

--------------------------------------------------
From: "Clifton Sleger" <02c...@PGSOFTWARETOOLS.COM>
Sent: Wednesday, November 04, 2009 7:33 AM
To: <tool...@LISTSERV.PLATTECANYON.COM>
Subject: Re: Calling Flash Movies?

[Dom Sinclair]

Peter

> Isn't technology fun... :-)

The Technology is fun... it's just writing the software to make it work
that takes it out of you!

Dom

[McCarron, Mike]

That brings to mind Claude Ostyn's (former ToolBook developer) saying, "The natural state of technology is 'not working'. Everything else is just an exception to the rule."

Peter

Dom

Thanks,
Peter H.

> http://www.pgsoftwaretools.com/index.html?nav=3DbuyPP

>
> Or to look at the function you may need to use, just visit the
complete
> tutorial at:

> http://www.pgsoftwaretools.com/tutorials/index.html?nav=3Dp24

[Brian Sullivan]

>
> That brings to mind Claude Ostyn's (former ToolBook developer) saying,

> "The=

> natural state of technology is 'not working'. Everything else is just

> an e=
> xception to the rule."
>

Claude -- we all miss him.