Help - Using Flash to display products
 

Does anyone know how to use swf files as the product images and not just gifs or jpgs?

I have a problem where i want to be able to dynamically write the price onto a handwriten style price tag. The flash bit i can do, its just making x-cart work that i'm strugling with - any help would be greatly appreciated.

I'm using the latest version of xcart on a unix server.

cheers,
David :!:

:arrow: http://www.cart-lab.com/lab/customer/product.php?productid=42

I just released the above, I'm sure this same exact setup could be done for product images and detailed images. I had actually planned on making a second mod for such.

Arh not bad thanks.

I managed to get flash to work for product listing :) even have the flash dynamically write the price on a little tag - check it out www.watchmarket.com.au

If anyones interested how i can post the source.

D

Nice touch, defiantly not a bad idea. My only concern would be customers whom have Flash disabled or a previous version of the .swf's used on the product images. Are you doing a plugin detect to adjust to IMG tags incase? Another approach might be to use the GD library in PHP to generate JPG/GIF's instead, since they are more friendly. But nice none-the-less.

Here's the Macromedia Technote on passing local variables:
:arrow: http://www.macromedia.com/support/flash/ts/documents/local_query.htm

hmm hadnt thought of gd libary - thanks i'll look into it.

about the version problem.. defintaly.. in the process of scaling it back to version 5 from 6 and putting some sniffer code in there as well.

Thanks for the link

I have the latest flash plugin and the images do not load. Only white space.

Mac OS 10.3.4
Browser - Safari 1.2.2

Activity monitor shows not found errors for these files:

http://www.watchmarket.com.au/skin1/images/watch_fla.swf?imageFilename=/image.php?productid=16501&price=$%a029.95&watchURL =product.php?productid=16501&cat=103&page=1&tagX=9 8&tagY=
http://www.watchmarket.com.au/skin1/images/watch_fla.swf?imageFilename=/image.php?productid=16503&price=$%a029.95&watchURL =product.php?productid=16503&cat=103&page=1&tagX=9 8&tagY=
http://www.watchmarket.com.au/skin1/images/watch_fla.swf?imageFilename=/image.php?productid=16504&price=$%a029.95&watchURL =product.php?productid=16504&cat=103&page=1&tagX=9 2&tagY=
http://www.watchmarket.com.au/skin1/images/watch_fla.swf?imageFilename=/image.php?productid=16505&price=$%a029.95&watchURL =product.php?productid=16505&cat=103&page=1&tagX=9 0&tagY=
http://www.watchmarket.com.au/skin1/images/watch_fla.swf?imageFilename=/image.php?productid=16506&price=$%a029.95&watchURL =product.php?productid=16506&cat=103&page=1&tagX=9 0&tagY=
http://www.watchmarket.com.au/skin1/images/watch_fla.swf?imageFilename=/image.php?productid=16507&price=$%a029.95&watchURL =product.php?productid=16507&cat=103&page=1&tagX=9 2&tagY=
http://www.watchmarket.com.au/skin1/images/watch_fla.swf?imageFilename=/image.php?productid=16508&price=$%a029.95&watchURL =product.php?productid=16508&cat=103&page=1&tagX=9 2&tagY=
http://www.watchmarket.com.au/skin1/images/watch_fla.swf?imageFilename=/image.php?productid=16512&price=$%a029.95&watchURL =product.php?productid=16512&cat=103&page=1&tagX=9 5&tagY=10
http://www.watchmarket.com.au/skin1/images/watch_fla.swf?imageFilename=/image.php?productid=16513&price=$%a039.95&watchURL =product.php?productid=16513&cat=103&page=1&tagX=9 7&tagY=

hmmm thanks for your post.

Not sure whats going on here - unfortunatly i dont have a mac to test with so i'm glad to get your feedback.

Does anyone know of any cavets i should know of when working with flash like this on macs?

Thanks in advance.

(the flash is currently in version 6)

Why is your activity monitor reporting /skin1/images/watch_fla.swf when it should be just watch.swf ?

dleaston, You may want to watch out using two question ? marks in the filename since it may be causing the problems. Also make use of the FlashVars parameter added in flash 6 to help pass local vars. ;)

arh.. the fact that theres two ?'s in the string doesnt work on a mac?

damn.

Ok - changing over now - let you know once its uploaded.

Cheers,

David

"Why is your activity monitor reporting /skin1/images/watch_fla.swf when it should be just watch.swf ?"

This was probably my problem - thanks for picking that up and your help with this guys, i had the Object Tag as watch.swf, but forgot to change the embed tag to watch.swf from the orginal watch_fla.swf i was using.

I've also changed it over to the FlashVars method you provided info on boomer.

Could you guys have a look now for me and tell me if you see the watches with the price tags?

Thanks again,

David

Hey it works now :)

Nice job dleaston!


BOOMER the code in the page said:
<param name="movie" value="/skin1/images/watch.swf" />

So that's why the activity monitor (that lists all elements called on the page) listed the SWF as:

http://www.watchmarket.com.au/skin1/images/watch.swf

wicked.

Thanks to both of you.