Inserting and Configuring Flash Movies

Macromedia's Flash file format has quickly become the Internet's unofficial default standard for multimedia implementation. The considerable compression capabilities and broad spectrum of player options have made it a preferred choice for many multimedia developers and Web designers.

Previously, inserting Flash movies in to FrontPage required editing the HTML directly. New to FrontPage 2003 is the ability to insert a Flash movie directly in to your FrontPage Web site.

Flash movies (SWF files) can be dragged directly into a FrontPage site. FrontPage will recognize the file and write the appropriate HTML code. The other option is to insert the file through the Insert, Picture, Movie in Flash Format option. The Movie in Flash Format Properties dialog opens, where you can choose the settings for the Flash movie (see Figure 6.16). Figure 6.17 shows how FrontPage Design view presents the Flash movie.

Figure 6.16. The Movie in Flash Format Properties dialog box lets you set the variables for inserting a Flash Movie without the need for editing any HTML.

Figure 6.17. FrontPage shows the insertion of a Flash file with an appropriate graphic.

The Movie area of the dialog box lets you set the quality, scale, background color, and alignment for the movie file. In most cases, you'll want to use the default settings. The layout area of the movie will let you set alignment, border thickness, and any horizontal or vertical spacing. The size area will let you set how you prefer the movie to be presented if the size of the movie needs to be changed. The General tab establishes the source and base URL (set when you inserted the movie) and any playback variables you want to change.

TIP

If you insert a third-party Flash movie in your site, you will probably want to keep the variables as they were set by FrontPage.