Embed HTML in flash?

[ahmun]

Hello all...

I have a unique question...

most of the time people want to embed flash inside their HTML pages...

But I'm thinking of an idea of embedding HTML inside a flash...

here's the details:

My company runs a database-driven phone list of all employees, complete with search function and other cool stuff... I run it in ASP/HTML on our company intranet server.

I'd like to develop a little application, like a floating window, that is just the search engine/results window.

I want it to display as clean as possible with no Windows bar or borders... just a simple box on the screen... draggable, with its borders customized to what I specify.

Can flash MX 2004 do that? create a borderless window, then... to avoid more work in development, have it embed the ASP pages I've already developed.

Basically I'm thinking I want to use flash to make a customized container for the phone list search function that employees can use for quick access.

Another note...

can I make this appear in the system tray, assign it always on top attributes, etc?

Any input would be appreciated!

Earnie Eng

 

[inum]

I'm new to Flash and HTML, but I can share the little that I know. Here's an all-flash site that I've just put up for a friend:

http://www.finebalancecoaching.com/

.

I'm using the Flash TextArea component and loading different XML files each time you click a link to a different page. You can embed HTML within an XML file -- you just have to start the HTML section with "<![CDATA[" and end it with "]]>". You can set the TextArea component to appear borderless if you want. Click the News menu item. Here's what the XML and HTML looks like for that:

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

<News>

<![CDATA[<i>Click the titles below for a PDF version of each article:</i><br>
<p></p>
<p><i><b><u><a href="

http://www.finebalancecoaching.com/ArticleCoachingAndCounselling.pdf"

target="_blank">Coaching and Counselling: What Is the Connection?</a></u></b>, Insight, Sharon Brain, MA, RCC and Juliet Austin, MA</i><br>Aside from a brief comparison of coaching and counseling, this article does an excellent job of conveying what to expect as a client in coaching. It is a great starter article for an overview of coaching logistics, such as fee ranges, intake sessions, outcomes, and more.</p>
<p></p>

...

]]>

</News>

 

[ahmun]

Thanks for the reply... but I'm looking for a way to control even the borders of the whole window... so that you don't have any of the windows elements that you see... kind of like when you create an executable in Macromedia Director. (wish I had that program...)

Something interesting... when I browsed to that site, and highlighted text in the textarea, then clicked on another section in the navigation, the content of the textarea changed but the highlighting remained...

Still looking for answers... anybody?

Earnie Eng

 

[jstreich]

Flash is a multimedia tool not a web-browser. As such, it cannot display HTML pages inside it. HOWEVER...

You can create a flash movie that calls the script using wither get or post and the results will appear in a new or exsisting browser window.

I don't think that when you publish a flash to an executable that you can make it borderless, but you can control the size and a few other options.

 

[ahmun]

hm... sounds like flash might not be the right tool to use?

does anyone here know of a development tool/software that can do what I'm looking for.

Earnie Eng

 

[jstreich]

Borderless will be VERY hard to come by...

If your willing to compromise on having borders, you can do it with JAVA which can display HTML in JEdit Panes and labels and such.

 

[pixl8r]

If it is in a web browser you will almost have to do it with borders. It is near impossible to do chromeless anymore (due to "security" enhancements).

You can create an .exe file with Flash. Otherwise the thing to do as mentioned would be to create a flash application (front end) that uses your existing application as a back end. You can display limited HTML in Flash, but you can't embed server side code in Flash.

You can also embed Flash in a VB application which may be more what you are looking for.

Hope it helps.

Wow JT that almost looked like you knew what you were doing!

 

[ManFromMars]

Don't know if this is way off base, but I was researching how put html files into flash and I found a little .fla file that I'm going to be disecting. It was located at

http://www.flashkit.com.

Just search their site for the work BROWSER and on page 3 of their flash source code you'll find something called FLASH WEB BROWSER. Looks like a flash file designed to load and run html files like a web browser. The .fla is free so mabey you could reverse engineer it for your needs. If you can't find the file on

http://www.flashkit.com,

just go to

http://www.marssupport.com/flashbrowser

and download it from my site.

hope this helps

Ted

 

[ahmun]

hmm... That was an awesome post, Ted...

A Flash-based web browser!

unfortunately... that would require too much of my time to reverse-engineer that code. I'm too much of a newbie at Flash.

Although I might keep it in my library for the future...

Thanks!

Earnie Eng

 

[pixl8r]

I should point out that that tute does not acutally display an HTML page in a Flash browser. It loads another SWF into the Flash browser.

Flash does have limited HTML support in textfields. It will not allow you to run ASP pages within a Flash movie. As mentioned before what you are hoping to do can not be done as you have described it... but you can make a flash application that makes use of your asp application so the same information is displayed in a Flash movie.

 

[wrpr7]

I would like to know if there i any way possible a way to put a director file into flash. I would like to put it in so I can establish my site. I would really like it if some could help please.
thank you
wrpr7