[thelist] Re: Deploying Video with Flash

[Diane Soini]

On Tuesday, August 17, 2004, at 04:05 AM, 
thelist-request at lists.evolt.org wrote:
>
>
>>> I wonder if you could fake a preloader with an animated gif in a
>>> hidden, positioned div that shows onclick of the play button, then
>>> hides when the flash movie is finally playing.
>
> That's an interesting idea - unfortunately the moment the flash button 
> is
> pressed to load in the proper video, the entire webpage locks up, so I 
> don't
> think it would work, but thanks for the thought. I may explore others
> possibilities upon similar lines, although the CD-ROM in question has 
> now
> gone for replication, so it'll have to be next years edition (although 
> after
> in a year in this business, the problem will probably be irrelevant!).
>
I suggested this because I had the same problem clicking a button to 
start an embedded Windows Media Player playing. It didn't lock up on my 
local machine, but once I uploaded to the server I'd click the button 
and it appeared like nothing happened, or that the browser locked up, 
until finally the player started playing.

So I faked a preloader with an animated gif. I positioned it on top of 
the Media Player div (I suppose Windows IE might be the only browser 
that will allow that). Then I used onmousedown to reveal the animated 
gif, and onmouseup to launch the Media Player. As soon as the Media 
Player was playing the preloader gif was hidden again. That small 
difference of time between onmousedown and onmouseup seemed to do the 
trick.


> Rich Osborne.
***
Don't be afraid to try something new. An amateur built the ark. 
Professionals built the Titanic. -unknown