Someone else recently asked me the same question, and it’s a good one. I told the other reader I would add this question to my to-do list (and I have!), but I don’t know when I’ll get the chance to write about that particular one. I’m in the middle of a new book for O’Reilly (as of Feb 2008) and have been falling behind on everything else!

I am beginner in flash, i am working on one flash video player. In that i want to run 10 flv on one same seek bar continually like one FLV. Is there any solution?

can i join the 10 flv to produce one flv as a result, if yes please help me

The SharedObject class is exactly the solution I was going to suggest! Have you made a few small tests first, just to make sure you’ve got the hang of how it works? You can use SharedObject to carry over whatever data you want, but because you’re also dealing with FLVPlayback and other ActionScript, there might simply be too much going on for you to see clearly what you’re dealing with. (I do this all the time! Then I have to remind myself to slow down, isolate the new idea in a completely new FLA [or set of FLAs] and take small steps until I understand exactly what the new code does.)

You might very well be carrying over the volume, but not retrieving it correctly from the next page — or maybe you’re not carrying it over, and the 100% winds up occurring because it’s default.

For every page that has this slider, you’re going to want to: a) use ShareObject.getLocal() to check for the existence of your “Flash cookie”; b) if a cookie exists, use the volume setting from that or an arbitrary default; and c) in addition, use the same getLocal() method whenever the slider sets the volume, then follow that with flush(), to make sure the cookie does get created and set immediately.

I have successfully implemented the volume slider on my page with your suggestions, thanks again! Works great on a single HTML page.

I’ve encountered a situation in my application where my SWF needs to be loaded into a sequence of HTML pages, and the volume slider value is getting reset to 100% with each new load. I currently have a single SWF that has an FLV component (plus the slider code), the FLV file name itself is set via a variable so the name of the file is called inside the HTML page.

I need to find a way to have the slider value carry from page to page as the SWF is loaded and show the slider in that “variable” position.

I’ve looked into using a shared object but I am unable to have it affect the volume slider. It keeps setting the volume to 100% when it’s loaded. Any suggestions, or is the shared object not the way to go?

Thanks!! Chris

I will need to carry over the current volume setting and slider position

If you’re seeing something about the on event handler, my guess is that you’ve placed your code on the buttons themselves, rather than in a timeline keyframe. The Actions panel updates its focus depending on what you’ve selected when you start typing. In pre-AS3 documents, you can select objects (buttons, movie clips, components) and add code directly to the object — in which case you don’t need instance names because Flash already knows which object(s) you mean.

Because you’re using instance names (the more modern, and Adobe-recommended, approach), you’ll need to remove that code from the buttons. See if my museum pieces article helps you out. Chin up!

Where do I drag the buttons in from the library?

Flash is very flexible about this. The key is to give each button an instance name (again, see the Property inspector while you have a button selected), then use that instance name in a valid object reference in order to tell it what to do. Think of object references like folders on your hard drive. If you were in the root of your computer (usually C:\ on Windows machines), how would you have to travel in order to get to a particular file?

If your code is in a keyframe of the main timeline and your buttons are also in the main timeline, the object reference would simply be the instance name of a given button. If those buttons were inside a movie clip symbol, that movie clip would also have to be given an instance name — and the your object reference would be the movie clip’s instance name, then a dot, then the button’s instance name. Make sense?

Do I double click the movie clip and drag them in during its edit mode? Or do I need to add them to the main stage of my scene?

Wherever you decide to put them, just make sure you use the correct object reference from the point of view of the ActionScript that speaks to them. I personally tend to put 99% of my ActionScript in a layer of its own (named “scripts”) in the main timeline.

What action script needs to be within the movie clip?

None. You could put your code in the movie clip, but that would the “point of view” of that code and might affect your object references.

Does the action script for the buttons need to be in the first and last keyframes of that layer so that they are available throughout the movie playing?

Think of your timeline like a grid with rows (horizontal) and columns (vertical). Keyframe ActionScript needs to be in the same column as the object(s) it’s trying to talk to. If your buttons span from frame 5 to frame 50, you would put your button event handlers into a keyframe of your scripts layer on frame 5 (the first frame that “meets” the buttons on a vertical column).

Can a seek bar work the same way?

The slider widget described in the blog entry works by the same principles of code “point of view” (that is, object references and where each object is in relation to other objects it needs).

Does that help?

Great information.
I had attempted something like this before to no avail, thanks for clarifying I was on the right track; I think I may just be adding the buttons in the wrong area.
My movie clip instsance name is everydayMovie, and my stop and play button instances are named playEveryday and stopEveryday.

Where do I drag the buttons in from the library? Do I double click the movie clip and drag them in during its edit mode? Or do I need to add them to the main stage of my scene?
What action script needs to be within the movie clip?
Does the action script for the buttons need to be in the first and last keyframes of that layer so that they are available throughout the movie playing?
Can a seek bar work the same way?

Sorry for the barrage, I’ve just been working on this for 6 days straight and feel like I am so close.

Thank you a million times over for your time and your expert advice!
:)

For videos of any substantial length (for example, longer than a few seconds), I definitely recommend that you use either the FLVPlayback component or the Video object/NetConnection/NetStream approach suggested elsewhere on this blog.

That said, there’s certainly nothing wrong with importing WMVs and putting them in movie clip timelines. It’s just that you may run into timing issues between the framerate of the video and the framerate of your FLA — and videos displayed in this way fall completely under the auspices of the MovieClip class. In a sense, that makes things easier, because movie clip timelines are less complicated than the NetStream class.

The movie clip that holds your video will need an instance name. Select the movie clip on the Stage and look to the Property inspector to do that. This allows that movie clip to be addressed by name and told what to do. The available instructions are listed in the MovieClip class entry of the ActionScript 2.0 Language Reference. The MovieClip.play() method, for example, tells a movie clip to play.

myVideoHolderClip.play();

You’ll see other methods that allow you to stop and jump around. The trick is, classes define objects, so class entries are a kind of Owner’s Manual for the object at hand (in this case, movie clips). Characteristics of the object are called properties, things it can do are called methods, and things it can react to are called events.

Give you buttons instance names as well, and they can also be programmed. Your code will go in a keyframe, and you’ll look to the Button class to see what events are available for button symbols.

playButton.onRelease = function():Void {
  myVideoHolderClip.play();
}
stopButton.onRelease = function():Void {
  myVideoHolderClip.stop();
}