flash media/ html

[xddxogm3]

i have a question.
i made my first flash .fla file.
it will be the splash screen to intering my website.
what html element would i use to have it show the .fla file at the entrance to the site?
also why will the follwing not work for showing it as a banner?

<img src="somebanner.fla">

am i missing some steps?
i have a couple books, but have not seen the code to insert the items into the page.
does anyone know of a good/prefered website that may have the code for my review?
i'm using macromedia studio mx 2004 professional.
thanks for any help you can provide.

[sean]

An excerpt from my HTML reference, the embed tag. The first indentation is a list of possible parameters, and the second indentation is a list of options you can use for a certain parameter. I imagine you won't have to use much more than the SRC, TYPE, and maybe PLUGINURL tag. I don't know where the JAR file for Flash is kept. The Flash website may be able to tell you.

EMBED - Embedded plug-in 
SRC="x" - Specifies plug-in data file 
TYPE="x" - Specifies MIME type 
PLUGINSPAGE="x" - Specifies installation help URL 
PLUGINURL="x" - Specifies location of JAR file 
ALIGN="x" - Specifies plug-in alignment 
	 "BOTTOM" - Specifies bottom alignment 
	 "LEFT" - Specifies left alignment 
	 "RIGHT" - Specifies right alignment 
	 "TOP" - Specifies top alignment 
BORDER=#n - Specifies border in pixels 
FRAMEBORDER="x" - Specifies status of border

edit: If you want to display a flash file as a banner, IMG won't work simply because flash is not really an "image" file. You can use the EMBED tag for this as well.

[xddxogm3]

Thanks for the help.
The clues that fixed the issue was the object and/or embed.
Another question.
Does anyone know of a list of reasons why flash looks different in other browsers?
I was writing it on xp with ie and then tried the same movie on linux and netscape.
Two completely different monsters.
The example is my banner for my website linked below.
This is my first Flash .swf ever. I would call it my "hello world" flash.

[edit1]
jar file for flash movies?
what does the flash jar have inside it?
[/edit1]

[xddxogm3]

so is there a common native flash player that is openly distributed in all browsers?
perhaps one of the older versions?
If I write for a common flash player located in all browsers, will the movies produce similar results when displayed to the client node dispite the os or browser?

[GanglyLamb]

since some browsers use the embed tag and others the object tag its best to just use them both like this

  <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="90" height="20">
    <param name="movie" value="Resources/swfs/welcome.swf">
    <param name="quality" value="high">
    <param name="play" value="true">
    <embed src="Resources/swfs/home_button.swf" quality="high" width="90" height="20"
  	play="true" type="application/x-shockwave-flash"
  	pluginspace="http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer"></embed>
  </object>

This is thte way we were taught to display swf's to make sure they display in every browser, i just copy n paste the source from one of my projects i had to do some time ago, heres the link so you can instantly check wether its working or not the way you want it:
http://gradict.kahosl.be/jan.audenae...ech/index.html

//edit
I'd also advise you not to use frames, actually because of numerous reasons but imo the most important one : bookmarking, when now someones wants to bookmark a page he will just bookmark one of the frames, if lucky he' ll bookmark the right frame and still end up on the correct page but still...
And its not too much extra work to drop the frames once you have the layout of the site it'll come down to a couple more ctrl-a, ctrl-c and ctrl-v's

[xddxogm3]

<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="90" height="20">
<param name="movie" value="Resources/swfs/welcome.swf">
<param name="quality" value="high">
<param name="play" value="true">
<embed src="Resources/swfs/home_button.swf" quality="high" width="90" height="20"
	play="true" type="application/x-shockwave-flash"
	pluginspace="http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer"></embed>
</object>

... This is thte way we were taught to display swf's to make sure they display in every browser

is this line in linux directory format?
I'm assuming that i would need to reference the drive location?

c://pathtofile/foo.swf

[Govtcheez]

You use Linux directory format because that's the same format for internet URLS. And you don't use drive letters (first of all, Linux doesn't use drive letters). You can either do a relative URL, as shown above, or you can use an absolute URL, which would start with "http://", for example.

[B0bDole]

always use relative URLs, please, for the sake of god...

it'll save a lot of time later down the road, it's like commenting your code, it'll save you time later, TRUST me