This is the first part in a series of articles I will be writing on encoding Flash Video (flv files) using the Adobe CS3 Video Encoder. I intend to cover all aspects of flv encoding to help you to attain the best results possible. If you are using another software to encode your flv files, such as Adobe After Effects or Final Cut Pro, many of the principles will be the same.
This site, built for DJ / Remix artist Al Fingers, is 100% ninja! It's powered by wordpress, believe it or not, but the theme is like no other wordpress theme I have ever seen. It uses iframes to load all the different categories into seperate lozenges on the home page. It is also backed up by the more conventional wordpress search and display single posts on a page. For this site I also created a unique 'View Tracklist' function for the Mixtapes category, which opens the tracklist for each mixtape in a pop-up window. The site utilises my monthly and reverse nav scripts which can be found here:
Wordpress Monthly Navigation | Wordpress Post Navigation Hacks
This is truly the Millenium Falcon of wordpress themes, and a must for all music lovers.
Check it out: www.alfingers.com
Something I've noticed recently, whilst installing many different WordPress plugins on my site and on other sites is the inconsistency in JavaScript popup window code used in many plugins, allowing for the same popup to be opened numerous times or for a popup to hide in the background behind another page. The basic code to open a popup is:
window.open('http://bla.com','myWindow','status = 1, height = 300, width = 300, resizable = 0');
However, if you add this code as the onclick for a button or anchor tag it will open a new popup each time it is clicked regardless of the fact that the window may already be open. Adding return false; will prevent this from happening, but then if the window is at the bottom of the pile clicking on the link will do nothing.
To ensure the window is brought to the front the code should be executed like this:
myPopup = window.open('http://bla.com','myWindow','status = 1, height = 300, width = 300, resizable = 0'); myPopup.focus(); return false;
Hey Sam,
In the second example the window.open object and it’s properties are being assigned to a custom window object reference. This makes the process of isolating, controlling, and recognising individual window.open objects easier. Basically, the window object reference ties the main window to the sub-window as well as creating a link between the secondary window to its main opener window.
If you wanted to harden the function shown above some more you could do something like whats below. This ensures the creation code isn’t ran if the window already exists. You can also test and verify if a window is closed by using ‘w.closed’, err not done here.
function openWin(url){
var w=null;
if(!w)w=window.open(url,….);
else w.focus();
return false;
}
Using approches like these is very bad news. Best practice is to avoid using window.open() at all.
<a href=”#” rel=”nofollow”>
<a href=”window.open(…)” rel=”nofollow”>
Anyway, if you were to, ideally the event that fires this function should be attached to the link unobtrusively, however, at the end of the day it will be formed something like this…
…onclick=”return openWin(this.href);”
I.E 7 will put an end to developers setting certain properties by force, e.g. removing the address bar, due to accessibility and security reasons… No doubt someone will find a work around.
cheers, c-received
Hmmm.. muffed my code and turned it into real HTML … Should fix this soon mate, also have a look into Cross Site Scripting as it would be quite easy to do this on your site.. E.G
a=”get”;
b=”URL(\”";
c=”javascript:”;
d=”alert(’XSS’);\”)”;
eval(a+b+c+d);
blah blah…
or to test this way ..
”;!–”=view source
Hi c-received,
Thanks for your detailed response. I will indeed look into Cross Site Scripting. I think you are right that using the window.open(…) method is not great. This brief article was written after I’d spent ages scanning throught the code of about 4 or 5 wp plugins that I’d installed on a clients site to fix these popup window problems.
S
Hi Sam Been hunting the internet for some advice on optimum source files for flash - with no joy. But came across your encoding flash video article and have been enlightened. Many thanks Grant
Very helpful information. Much appreciated. Thank you.
Thank you for this useful article.
Very informative.
It solved my issue with horizontal lines in flash video files.