Problems with displaying a flash movie in a showing / hiding div

[Daan]

On one of my websites, I have a menu in the same style as the menu on
http://codeigniter.com/user_guide/ However, when I replace the text
content with a flash menu, the behaviour becomes broken: Firefox won't
display the flash movie until you click on the place where it should
appear, and Safari still displays part of the movie, even when the
menu is not expanded.

I tried to create a workaround using the following javascript code:

function toggleMenu() {
myHeight.toggle();
if (menuShowing) {

document.getElementById('objectFlashMenu').style.visibility='hidden';
menuShowing = false;
} else {

setTimeout("document.getElementById('objectFlashMenu').style.visibility='visible';",
500);
menuShowing = true;
}
}

In Safari 3 on OS X this works fine, however, in Firefox it still
won't display the flash movie until it is clicked on and in IE7 the
behaviour is 'weird', sometimes it works, sometimes not.

Does anyone have experience with this kind of behaviour and perhaps
know of a fix or workaround? Thanks for any help.

 

[cwdjrxyz]

On one of my websites, I have a menu in the same style as the menu onhttp://codeigniter.com/user_guide/However, when I replace the text
content with a flash menu, the behaviour becomes broken: Firefox won't
display the flash movie until you click on the place where it should
appear, and Safari still displays part of the movie, even when the
menu is not expanded.

I tried to create a workaround using the following javascript code:

function toggleMenu() {
myHeight.toggle();
if (menuShowing) {

document.getElementById('objectFlashMenu').style.visibility='hidden';
menuShowing = false;
} else {

setTimeout("document.getElementById('objectFlashMenu').style.visibility='visible';",
500);
menuShowing = true;
}

}

In Safari 3 on OS X this works fine, however, in Firefox it still
won't display the flash movie until it is clicked on and in IE7 the
behaviour is 'weird', sometimes it works, sometimes not.

Does anyone have experience with this kind of behaviour and perhaps
know of a fix or workaround? Thanks for any help.

I had some problems a long time ago with using visibility to switch a
flash movie on and off. The movie had sound, and although the visuals
would switch on and off(at least on a browser or two I tried) the
sound always played on some browsers. I also once had some problems
with a video(don't remember if it was flash or some other format) that
was loaded hidden and then switched on at some point, the problem
being that it did not switch on. The solution was to load the video as
visible and then use a very short time delay to switch it off at once.
Then the movie would switch on again when instructed to do so at some
time.

You might be able to get around this if you can remake the movie using
the modern flv/swf approach. The actual video is a separate flv(flash
video) file. The swf is a container file that links to the swf video.
You can generate all kinds of players and actions in the swf container
file including auto start or not, various control bars, logos, text,
etc. More recent official flash authoring programs can do this, and
there are some other programs at a more reasonable price that will do
most things that people need for flv/swf.

 

[Daan]

I had some problems a long time ago with using visibility to switch a
flash movie on and off. The movie had sound, and although the visuals
would switch on and off(at least on a browser or two I tried) the
sound always played on some browsers. I also once had some problems
with a video(don't remember if it was flash or some other format) that
was loaded hidden and then switched on at some point, the problem
being that it did not switch on. The solution was to load the video as
visible and then use a very short time delay to switch it off at once.
Then the movie would switch on again when instructed to do so at some
time.

You might be able to get around this if you can remake the movie using
the modern flv/swf approach. The actual video is a separate flv(flash
video) file. The swf is a container file that links to the swf video.
You can generate all kinds of players and actions in the swf container
file including auto start or not, various control bars, logos, text,
etc. More recent official flash authoring programs can do this, and
there are some other programs at a more reasonable price that will do
most things that people need for flv/swf.

Maybe my use of the word 'movie' is a little confusing, the flash
object that I have on the website is not a 'movie', but an interactive
menu. It has some animation and clickable areas and serves as the main
navigation for the website.

 

[Travis Newbury]

Does anyone have experience with this kind of behaviour and perhaps
know of a fix or workaround? Thanks for any help.

How about posting a URL displaying the problem?

 

[Daan]

How about posting a URL displaying the problem?

That's a little difficult, as the development server is protected by a
password. I was hoping that my description alone would trigger some
reaction. If not, I'll try and see if I can post part of the site on a
public server.

 

[Travis Newbury]

That's a little difficult, as the development server is protected by a
password. I was hoping that my description alone would trigger some
reaction. If not, I'll try and see if I can post part of the site on a
public server.

You are only demonstrating the concept. put enough code there to
demonstrate how it breaks.

 

[Daan]

You are only demonstrating the concept. put enough code there to
demonstrate how it breaks.

Okay, please check <http://wwwhome.cs.utwente.nl/~stolp/tq/>.