Help Embedding Flash in HTML (swf + xml)

[captainSheepdog]

Greetings all,

I am a junior C#/ASP.NET web developer and have been working for about 3 weeks now.

Recently, the graphics person here at work gave me a .swf flash file, an xml file that contained content for the .swf file and a content folder that contained slideshow images referenced in the .xml file. The flash file is named preview.swf and the xml file is named banner.xml

I have been attempting to embed this slideshow but the only thing i'm getting is the load icon. (Spinning circle in Win 7/IE 9)

I have placed the .swf and the .xml files in the root folder with the rest of the web pages and the content folder in the root as well. The paths referenced in the .xml file are good.

Here is the code im using to embed the slideshow on the html page:

<object classid="clsid:d27cdb6e-ae6d-11cf-96b8-444553540000" 
        codebase="http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/
        cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=6,0,40,0"  
        width="900" height="361"  id="mymoviename"> 
        <param name="movie" value="preview.swf?xml_source=banner.xml" />  
        <param name="quality" value="high" /> 
        <param name="bgcolor" value="#ffffff" /> 
        <embed src="preview.swf?xml_source=banner.xml" quality="high" bgcolor="#ffffff"
            width="900" height="361" 
            name="Weather King Intro" align="" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" 
            pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer"> 
        </embed>

...and here is the contents of the .xml file:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

<!-- slideShowTime - if set to 0, there is no autoslide -->

<banner width = "970" height = "361"
		backgroundColor = "0xffffff"
		backgroundTransparency = "100"
		
		startWith = "1"
		barHeight = "45"
		fadeTransition = "false"
		verticalTransition = "false"
		controllerTop = "false"
		transitionSpeed = "1"
		titleX = "0"
		titleY = "0">

	<items>
		<item>
			<title></title>
			<path>/content/images/FreeDelivery.jpg</path>
			<url>http://www.WeatherKing.com</url>
			<target>_blank</target>
			<bar_color>0xeacf2a</bar_color>
			<bar_transparency>70</bar_transparency>
			<slideShowTime>5</slideShowTime>
		</item>
		
		<item>
			<title></title>
			<path>/content/images/Quality.jpg</path>
			<url>http://www.WeatherKing.com</url>
			<target>_blank</target>
			<bar_color>0xeacf2a</bar_color>
			<bar_transparency>50</bar_transparency>
			<slideShowTime>5</slideShowTime>
		</item>
		
		<item>
			<title></title>
			<path>/content/images/RentToOwn.jpg</path>
			<url>http://www.WeatherKing.com</url>
			<target>_blank</target>
			<bar_color>0xeacf2a</bar_color>
			<bar_transparency>70</bar_transparency>
			<slideShowTime>5</slideShowTime>
		</item>			
	</items>
		
</banner>

As I have no previous experience in flash, any assistance would be greatly appreciated!

-Sheepdog

[iamthwee]

Assuming all things being equal.

In other words, testing the thing locally on your machine the images load up successfully, one thing I noticed is that on hosting sites if your images are named:

something.JPG

That's with the extensions capitalised it throws a spanner in the works if your xml file calls for them in lower-case. It might also have something to do with caching as flash has a few oddities with caching.

Failing that you could attach a file structure containing the html and .swf and .xml and.fla for me to test.

I have Flash CS4 if the .fla file needs tweaking.

Ciao.