Overview:

Using ExternalInterface.addCallback() we can expose an actionscript function and make it available to javascript. This would be helpful to have your webpage with embedded flash communicate to your flash swf file and even control it with javascript! Say we wanted to have buttons in the html page that would control an object in the flash. Communication is a two-way road so wouldn’t it be great to be able to go the other way as well, you can! That is the main function of ExternalInterface! In this example/tutorial I will explain both directions of communication with flash and javascript! Communication between flash and javascript isn’t just a myth or mystery!

Steps:

1. Be sure to import flash.external.*;
2. Set up the javascript to actionscript lane of your communication road. (ExternalInterface.addCallback(methodName, instance, method);)
3. Write your javascript function.
4. Set up the actionscript to javascript lane. (ExternalInterface.call(functionNameInJavascript);)

We will follow the text’s journey on our road of communication…

The One way: I type in ‘Johnny Appleseed’ in the html text box and press the Send Text To Flash button. The onclick javascript event finds the flash element and calls it’s function (sendTextFromHtml) and then clears the text in the html box. This function has been set up and is exposed to javascript (in actionscript lines 4-7) with the methodName ‘sendTextFromHtml’ while the method it calls is recieveTextFromHtml() in the actionscript. So ‘Johnny Appleseed’ is received as the parameter of the recieveTextFromHtml() function and is assigned to the text of the theText text box.

And back: Now I delete ‘Johnny Appleseed’ since he’s only a fable and enter ‘Paul Bunyan’ in the swf text box and press the Send From Flash to Javascript button. This calls the onRelease function associated with this button. ExternalInterface.call calls the ‘recieveTextFromFlash’ function in the javascript of the page and passes ‘Paul Bunyan’ as the parameter. The javascript function finds the html text box using getElementById() and assigns the parameter to the value of that text box!

This technique will even work if you’re not sending folklore character down the road.

Example:

View the live example here: ActionscriptJavascriptCommunication.html

NEW live example with swfobject2 works in IE! ActionscriptJavascriptCommunication2.html

Actionscript:

Javascript:

HTML: view Source of sample page

Download:

Download all source files (.fla, .html, .swf): ActionscriptJavascriptCommunication.zip

The results are in and the requested topic is “Integrate Google Analytics into Flash.” The poll has been reset and is ready to recieve your post requests, so keep voting! It’s located in the side bar!

Overview:

Tracking your visitors and attempting to better understand them is a large part of even having content on the web. Since the days of visitor counters displayed proudly on every site, along with dozens of animated gifs to the days when site were designed solely with efficiency and conversion in mind. There are many services that will do this for a fee and other that will do it for free. A popular free web analytics tool is provided by Google. Google Analytics is started by including JavaScript on each page the user wishes to track. This JavaScript loads larger files from the Google webserver and then sets variables with the user’s account number. This JavaScript is used to track and log page views and visitors interaction with the site. This post discusses what to do if your site includes a lot of interactive flash elements you wish to track as well. With the little Google has published related to this(New Code, Old Code), I’ve tried to fill in.
Note: This explains how to set up to track flash events as page views, which does have a drawback- it inflates your pageviews in the analytics and in turn may skew your data. Il’l beposting again soon about how to use then new event tracking, which would track flash events not as pageviews, but as events and thus not inflate the page view count.

Steps:

1. If you haven’t already, install Google Analytics on your site. (Note that your analytics tracking code must be placed on the page above the flash call(s) to _trackPageview or urchinTracker)
2. Determine which events in flash you want to track.
3. Place in the external.interface code in your actionscript at the specific event(s).
4. Watch the events get logged in you Google Analytics Reports!

Example:

Here’s a simple example, say you want to track how many times an object is clicked or dragged by a user or how many times it bounces (something that could be tracked but doesn’t necessarily have any required user interaction). In this example flash file I have a ball which bounces off the walls and users can click to drag and even throw it, press the spacebar to create more balls and toggle the gravity on and off with the arrow keys (up is weightlessness, and down is gravity). Each of these events has code to communicate with Google Analytics JavaScript and track the events. I made my own function to call the google analytics code. Do I hear “but sometimes I want to use the new version of Google analytics, and sometimes I want to use the old one…” Have no fear, this function works for either one, or even both. If you’re not using the newer code the calls to the functions in the new code (pageTracker._trackPageview()) will be ignored and vice versa, if you are using the new code, then the calls to the functions in the old code (urchinTracker()) will be ignored, since the functions are not defined. You can track virtually anything with this method. I’ve exaggerated greatly in this example- just to show the variety of different ways this can be used. You might want to make certain the things you track will be useful and relevant for you.

Here is the swf file, I’ve added a text box that will print all actions that are logged to Google Analytics

track Google Analytics actionscript function

Calls to Google Analytics actionscript function

Download:

IntegrateGoogleAnalytics.zip

Update:

Here is a screenshot of my Google Analytics Top Content after I search for “pageTracker/IntegrateGoogleAnalytics” (because I’m using the new code version, if I were using the old version I’d search for “urchin/IntegrateGoogleAnalytics”). This just shows that every event was logged to Google Analytics. This screenshot was taken mere hours after this post published.

New Event Tracking technique tutorial rather than posting each event you want to track in flash as a pageview it can be a specific event!

Just added a poll plug-in to the site!

I’m polling readers to see what they want next, in regards to posts.

I have so many post drafts and even more post ideas and instead of letting them roll out in my usual leisurely fashion, I figured I’d let you prioritize them for me…
So vote in the poll to let me know what you want!

Feel free to contact me if you have any ideas that I haven’t listed yet. I enjoy knowing I’m writing for someone who is interested!

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Plug-in Credit to: Lester ‘GaMerZ’ Chan

Update:

This poll is closed, and I’m working on the winning post! Integrating Google Analytics with Flash!
So keep posted, or subscribe to the RSS for immediate automatic free update.

I’ll keep a running poll in the side bar of the site so keep voting and suggesting your Most Wanted Posts!

Overview:

Flash give publishers the opportunity to customize the right-click menu which pops up in the swf file with a context menu item in actionscript.

ContextMenuItem

Creates a new ContextMenuItem object that can be added to the

array.

Steps:

The menu item has a caption, which is displayed to the user in the right click menu. It also has a a callback function handler by naming the function in the code to be invoked once the menu item is selected. It then has three boolean values which specify whether the item has a separator before it, is enabled, and is visible.

To add a new context menu item to a context menu, you simply create the context menu items and then push them into the customItems array.
You can enable or disable specific menu items, make items visible or invisible, or change the caption or callback handler associated with a menu item at any time.
In the example here the menu items about clearing and rewriting the text are set to toggle each other, so you can’t rewrite the text if it hasn’t yet been cleared and vice versa.

To further customize the context menu flash allows us to hide the built in items in the menu with hideBuiltInItems(). This hides all the built in item from view (except ‘settings’) by setting their visibility to false.

Example:

Download:

Download the Zip file (right-clickMenu.zip)

The new video player from StomperNet!

Feature Set: This Video Player is built in Adobe flash. I was involved in the actionscripting and design of the player and implementing many of the functions. There is a playlist imported into the player and even an html ‘sales pages’ loaded into the player. The progress bar shows download progress, watched progress and even history. It shows you how far you’ve ever watched in each specific video in the playlist, the “high-water mark”, and it lets you jump back to that spot easily by clicking in the progress bar. A feature I’m proud of is the mute, it doesn’t just cut the audio, but has a fade to silent quality- which even remembers your preferred volume if you come back to the page later. The player incorporates google analytics. Full Screen mode allows use of the entire monitor. Another ‘tab’ is used to show info about the author.

There is a lot packed into this one player, and we have plans to pack in even more!

Stompernet is using this player to promote their new line of content: Going Natural 2