Back again, my pet tadpoles (they still haven't grown into frogs yet!). This time I am going to explain the actionscript that makes them move, turn and run from the mouse. Firstly, heres an example of what they do (move your mouse over them and watch 'em swim away): Read on…

Q. How can I make an image or swf file load after a specified number of seconds?

A. Use the simple but effective flash_timer.swf file by Sam Burdge. Whoopeee!

Ever wanted a particular Flash movie or image to load up / start playing after the rest of your page has loaded, or after a set amount of time? This tutorial, and the support files provided with it will make it very easy indeed. The flash_timer.swf file will load a swf or image into your page after a number of seconds that you specify.

Example:

Check out this basic example to see a swf (called test.swf) load after a 10 second delay: Example 1
You can view the source code of the example to see how it works.

Usage:

1. Download the source files using the link below, and unzip the archive.
2. Embed the swf file 'flash_timer.swf' into your webpage. In my example I have used the swfObject method to embed the file, but you can use whichever method you prefer. For more information about this you can check this useful tutorial by Jeroen Wijering.
3. Set the height, width & background colour of the swf according to those of the file you want to load in.
4. Pass the two variables that the file requires to work: myswf – the file that will be loaded & mysecs – the number of seconds delay before the file is loaded. You can pass the variables in the url string, for example:

flash_timer.swf?myswf=my_movie.swf&mysecs=5

(This will load the movie 'my_movie.swf' after a 5 second delay.)

You can also pass the variables as flashvars, for example:

flashvars="myswf=example.jpg&mysecs=10"

(This will load the image 'example.jpg' after a 10 second delay.)

I hope you find this useful, if you do or if you have any questions, please feel free to leave a comment on this page (no emails please, I won't reply unless you are offering me hard cash!!). The flash_timer.swf file is only 1kb, so it will not effect the overall loading time of your page, it can be embedded at any height/width dimensions and works from flash player 7 upwards.

Download Source:

The download contains the all important flash_timer.swf plus a working example (index.html). The size of the zip is 6kb. Enjoy!!

This is one of my all time favourite animated films, Food by Jan Svankmajer. Here it is split into three parts - breakfast, lunch and dinner. Very surreal!

BREAKFAST

LUNCH

DINNER

About Jan Svankmajer: Wikipedia, IMDB

This article is an extension / improvement upon another article I published on my site previously: Simple Javascript for Image Mouseovers. As I am always looking for improved methods, I was discussing the pitfalls of the javascript method with a friend (and occasional comment writer / contributor to my site) who pointed me in the direction of CSS and image sprites. This lead me to research the topic further, and I found two articles in particular which were incredibly useful:

Read on…

This WordPress plugin changes the default email address that all notifications sent from your blog are addressed from. The default address for all emails sent by your blog is currently wordpress@ yoursite.com.

I had seen some tutorials / forum entries previously where people suggested editing the core WordPress file 'pluggable.php' to overide this default. This method does work, however you would have to repeat the hack every time you upgrade to a new version of WordPress so it is not an ideal solution.

Faced with this problem for a site I was working on recently, I wrote this basic plugin which allows you to configure your own email address in the format: Your Name <yourname@yoursite.com>.

Installation:

1. Upload the file wp_change_default_email.php to your wp-content/plugins folder
2. Activate the plugin from the Plugins page in WordPress

Usage:

1. In the Plugins page in WordPress click the edit button next to the plugin in the list.
2. Scroll down until you see a note saying 'Configure it'
3. Enter your name and email as shown
4. If you don't enter a new address the default 'wordpress@' will remain

Download: