Chapter 11 Adding Media and Interactivity. Flash is a software program that allows you to create low-bandwidth, high-quality animations and interactive

Chapter 11

Adding Media and Interactivity

• Flash is a software program that allows you to create low-bandwidth, high-quality animations and interactive elements that you can place on your web pages.

Adding and Modifying Flash Objects

Website based on Flash


• Low-bandwidth animations are animations that don’t require a fast connection to work properly. These animations use a series of vector-based graphics that load quickly and merge with other graphics and sounds to create short movies.


• Vector-based graphics are scalable graphics that are built using mathematical formulas, rather than built with pixels.


• Flash movies require Flash Player, a plug-in that is included in the latest versions of Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, Safari, and Opera, to view them.


Flash movie playing in the browser


• The original Flash file is stored as a separate file in the website root folder.


Selecting the crab.fla file

The path for your site root

folder

The crabdance.fla file is selected


• A Flash button is a button made from a small, predefined Flash movie that you can insert on a web page to provide site navigation, either in place of or in addition to other types of hyperlinks, such as plain text links.


• You can assign Flash buttons a variety of behaviors in response to user actions, such as opening a different page in the browser when the mouse pointer is placed over it.


• Like all Flash objects, Flash buttons have the .swf file extension.


• You can use Flash to:– create Flash movies that include multimedia

elements, such as audio files (both music and voiceovers)


Flash movie playing in Dreamweaver

Flash movie playing

Click to stop movie


• You can use Flash to:– animated objects, scripted objects, clickable links,

and just about any other animated or clickable object imaginable.

– add content to your existing website or to create an entire website.


• A rollover image is an image that changes its appearance when the mouse pointer is placed over it in a browser.

Adding Rollover Images

Walton Arts Center website using rollover images to display menus

Menu opens when mouse rolls over

menu name


• A rollover image consists of two images:– the first image is the one that appears when the

mouse pointer is not positioned over it.– the second image is the one that appears when

the mouse pointer is positioned over it.


• A rollover image can use Flash to:– animated objects, scripted objects, clickable links,

and just about any other animated or clickable object imaginable.

– add content to your existing website or to create an entire website.


Viewing the rollover image in the browser

Image is swapped when the mouse

rolls over it


Image is swapped when the mouse

rolls over it

• Rollover images are often used to help create a feeling of action and excitement on a web page.

• You can add rollover images to a web page using the Rollover Image command on the Images menu in the Common category.


• Another way for you to create a rollover image, button, or menu bar is to insert it as a Fireworks HTML file.

• You can also use rollover images to display an image associated with a text link.


Images menu on the Insert panel

Images menu

Rollover Image command

Fireworks HTML

command


• When a rollover image is inserted onto a page, Dreamweaver adds two behaviors;– Swap Image behavior has JavaScript code that

directs the browser to display a different image when the mouse is rolled over an image on the page.


• When a rollover image is inserted onto a page, Dreamweaver adds two behaviors;– Swap Image Restore behavior restores the

swapped image back to the original image.


• Behaviors are sets of instructions that you can attach to page elements that tell the page element to respond in a specific way when an event occurs, such as when the mouse pointer is positioned over the element.

Adding Behaviors

• When you attach a behavior to an element, Dreamweaver generates the JavaScript code for the behavior and inserts it into your page code.

Adding Behaviors

• You can use the Behaviors panel located in the Tag panel group to insert a variety of JavaScript-based behaviors on a page.

Adding Behaviors

Behaviors panel with the Actions menu displayed

Adding behavior button

Actions menu

Adding Behaviors

• Actions are triggered by events.• If you want the user to see a page element

slide across the page when the element is clicked, you hey would attach the Slide action using the onClick event to trigger the action.

Adding Behaviors

Viewing the edited behavior

onMouseOver action

Adding Behaviors

• Some of the behaviors that you can add to web pages use a JavaScript library called the Spry framework for AJAX.

Adding Behaviors

• Asynchronous JavaScript and XML (AJAX) is a method for developing interactive web pages that respond quickly to user input, such as clicking a map.

Adding Behaviors

• In the library, you will find:– spry widgets, which are prebuilt components for

adding interactivity to pages.– spry effects, which are screen effects such as

fading and enlarging page elements.

Adding Behaviors

• When you add a spry effect to a page element, Dreamweaver automatically adds a SpryAssets folder to the site root folder with the supporting files inside the folder.

Adding Behaviors

• Another way to add rich media content to your web pages is to insert video files.

• Of the several available video formats, one of the most popular is the MP4 format.

Adding Video

Viewing a video in a browser

Video window

Sound control

Controls for video Closed caption option

Script for video is displayed when Closed caption

option is selected

Adding Video

• You can insert a video in Dreamweaver with the Insert, Media, Plugin command, but HTML5 introduced another way to add video with the <video> tag.

Adding Video

Inserting a video on the about_us page

Video placeholder

inserted on page

Adding Video

• The advantages of this method are numerous:– it supports video in native formats.– it is compatible with all browsers.– You can access the video controls using a

keyboard.

Adding Video

• You can include code to link multiple video formats to provide access for all browsers and make your videos searchable by search engines.

Adding Video

• A buffer is a temporary storage area on your hard drive that acts as a holding area for the video content as it is being played.

Adding Video

• Other video formats that you can link or embed on a web page include AVI, FLV, WebM, MOV, Ogg.

• Currently, the MP4, WebM, and Ogg formats support the HTML5 <video> tag.

Adding Video

• Not all browsers support all three formats, so it is a good idea to provide multiple file formats for your users files.

Adding Video

Viewing the video in a browser

Play button becomes pause button while

video is playing

Adding Video

• Users access playback controls with a controller.

• A controller appears as a graphic element called a skin placed over or below a video.

Adding Video

• Controls include buttons or sliders to stop, start, and pause the video, control the sound level or mute the sound, or display a script of the video.

Adding Video

• Controllers can be coded to customize both the appearance of the skin and the controls that will be included.

Adding Video

• To incorporate sound into a website you can:– embed them as background sounds.– embed them on a page with visible sound controls– link them to a page.– add them to a page with the new <audio> tags

introduced with HTML5.

Adding Sound

Playing an audio file on a web page

List of audio files available

Blue bar indicates how much of the file has been downloaded

Pause/play button

Playhead indicates playback position Volume control

Adding Sound

• The following are a few questions you should ask yourselves before you decide to add a sound to a page.– What is the purpose you have in mind?– Will the sound add to the rich media experience

for your users?

Adding Sound

• The following are a few questions you should ask yourselves before you decide to add a sound to a page.– What devices will the users use to play the sound?– Have you tested the audio file to make sure the

sound quality is excellent?

Adding Sound

• Dreamweaver has a generic controller that you will see when you add a sound file in the following steps.

Adding Sound

• You can use CSS3 to change the appearance of a controller, but all controllers will have the basic play and pause buttons and a way to control the volume.

Adding Sound

Documents

Chapter 11 Adding Media and Interactivity. Flash is a software program that allows you to create low-bandwidth, high-quality animations and interactive