Fireworks Article

Creating Flash-Based Slideshows with Fireworks

Customizing Album Player Files

When publishing and packaging a customized Fireworks Album player, note the following:

1. Publish your SWF and change the extension type to .fap (this hack prevents the Album Player SWF from appearing in the Commands menu).

2. Publish your HTML file with either an .htm or .html extension. (This HTML file is optional, actually.)

   Note: In Windows, you may need to rename this file using the file's Properties dialog box. In Mac OS X, unless you have explicitly set the "show file extensions" option in the Finder, simply renaming the file may not work because the file may still retain the .swf extension internally.

3. Create or edit the MXI file so that the FAP and HTML files are placed in the Configurations\Commands\Create Slideshow\players folder.

   Note: Both the SWF and HTML files must have the same name for the Launch in Browser option to work at the end of a process.

The generated XML file has the following structure:

<AlbumBook... >
    <Album ... >
        <Slide ... />
        <Slide ... />
        <Slide ... />
    </Album>
    <Album ... >
        <Slide ... />
        <Slide ... />
        <Slide ... />
    </Album>
</AlbumBook>

Following are the node definitions of the XML file. You can change these XML properties in the generated slideshow.xml file without having to recreate the slideshow just to modify a property.

AlbumBook node

• autoStart: Starts the slideshow automatically
• title: Shows the main title of the slideshow
• width: Sets the width of the slideshow
• height: Sets the height of the slideshow
• showThumbnails: Determines whether or not to show thumbnails, or whether or not thumbnails were exported
• thumbWidth: Determines the width of the thumbnail
• thumbHeight: Determines the height of the thumbnail

Album node

• title: Sets the title of this particular album
• path: Sets the name of the folder that contains the images for this album; thumbnails are exported in the thumbs folder inside the path
• interval: Sets the slideshow interval, in seconds, for this album
• transType: Sets the slideshow transition for this album
• transTime: Determines the transition time
• useTransition: Determines whether or not to use transitions
• allowClick: Determines whether or not to allow users to click the slide images—meaningful only if the slideshow player supports it (that is, the slideshow's ActionScript code is written specifically to read and use this attribute from the XML file)

Slide node

• src: Sets the name of the image file for this slide
• caption: Shows the caption associated with this slide

Where to Go from Here

Download the Fireworks Album Creator source code using the link at the beginning of this article and make your own player. The ZIP contains all the necessary Flash source files to build your own player or take one of ours apart for learning purposes.

You can also find Hiroshi or me in the FireworksGuru Forums if you need help with the Fireworks Album Creator or want feedback on your own player.

For more information about extensions in Fireworks, visit the Extensions Topic Center in the Developer Center.

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