Categories
FlashBox

Flashbox – Todo and requests

Todo

  • usefull information about
    • error handeling
    • usefull information about the loading
    • Feedback if img not there (error)
    • Feedback from a slow server
  • extra information
  • More information about img (meta data)
  • resize if image is to big
  • Gallery navigation
    • thumbnails, or something similar so you can skip a couple images in a gallery
  • Read xml
  • Read FLV
  • Read MP3
  • autoplay / slideshow
  • resize big images
  • Flash 7 plugin (nice to have) as minimum requirement, FlashBox uses now Flash 8 plugin which should cover about 94% of the users (source Adobe)
  • If no Flash plugin is available (or not the correct version) there should be a possibility to view without Flashbox
  • A button in tinyMCE the default wysiwyg editor
  • Visible notification form the activation of FlashBox
  • Posible to activate FlashBox without ‘rel=”flashbox”‘ – tag

note: A good example is the slideshow from flickr.com.

Requests

There was no specific place to place requests.
And now there is, so I collected the requests I already got and placed it here:


emre

Congratulations on your new plug-in! While it looks great, I have to say you have more competition than you realize. The newest breed includes Slightbox (23KB) and Litebox (3KB).

While size is no longer an issue, I can think of one area where you can pull ahead: ease of installation. All the others require modifying the code to add a REL attribute to tags. If you can make yours work without modifying any code, it will be the first choice of many people.

Veel bedankt!

Answer: This is a possibility, but I think should be an option which can be activated.


Hardy

Thanks man, good idea to build up something smaller than most of the other photo-plugins for wp. What i always miss, is a solution to show iptc-Data. Woud be nice to put this feature into the plugin. But good work for now.

Hardy

Answer: I think it’s possible to do this.
The PHP JPEG Metadata Toolkit by Evan Hunter. I have to perfect the Flash first before I introduce another feature. But this was also a though of mine, but not this extensive (I had never heard of iptc-Data)
Thx for pointing this out to me!


42 replies on “Flashbox – Todo and requests”

Hi,
Thanks for a very nice plug-in – just what we needed. We have one big problem though. Our flashvideo is completely out of sync when played through flashbox. I noticed that flashbox_v01.3.swf is running with 12fps. And my movie is running at 25fps. After some research on the net I found that this might be the reason for the sync problem. I’m not sure if it will help to increase the framerate but if you could make a 25fps version available – we would be extremly happy!!

Because I don’t want to many people to use the direct link to the file, I will “disguise” the url a little:

“http://www.matthijskamstra.nl/blog/ wp-content/download” + [slash]+”wp-flashbox_v01.4.zip ”

And the next version will be changed to …_v01.5.zip

in fact the “rel” attribute is “great” when you begin a blog. But when you are 2000 entries … I don’t imagine change 2000 posts to do this 🙂 and the way of Jquery would be nice … for example … all images inside a div entry : if the pics are inside the div entry, all pics are “flashboxable”. The inconvenient : impossible for the script to create “several” galleries.

Rod, You are the second one who asks for this feature.
So there must be a demand for such a plugin.

In the next update, or soon after that I will build in this feature.
But this will probably take some time, because I’m moving on unknown terrain (PHP)

Thx

Thank you for the nice plug-in! I’ve also tried Lightbox, Litebox, and Slimbox, but I’ll be sticking to Flashbox from now on.

A question: Is there a way to make the caption drops a little faster?

Thanks again,

Thuy

Hi Thuy,

there is no way to drop the caption faster….
but I found it also too slow, especially in the gallery, so in the next release this will be changed.

So you have to wait for version 1.5

I am using your Flashbox on my site for my image gallery. Even though I followed your instructions for installation I was getting some weird behavior in Firefox 2.0.0.3 on Windows XP. What seemed to be happening was the scripts wouldn’t activate themselves even though each thumbnail had the rel attribute. What I had to do to get it working consistently was move all of the script calls just before the closing body tag. Not sure if this is a bug or something. Just though I would let you know.

Uh…love the new version. sweet. Thankyou. I’ve just upgraded to the latest version of WordPress 2.1.3 and dear FBx is not listed as compatible with Wp. Sacre-bleu! it is a mistake, non?

Hey, great plugin indeed! Congratulations.
I tried to lookup google about flashbox and a possibility to pass the height and width value to it.So far no result (maybe I can’t find it).
Why ?
It’s because my flash swf file is extended to whole width of the page I’m viewing. I’m using firefox 2.0.0.3 and flashplayer 8 on windows xp.

Here is the example:
http://piotros.bilmem.net/?page_id=10

after you click on the map it opens flashbox and resizing the swf file to fit whole page. I would like it to be 500/400 centered not the whole page.

I would be gratefull for any explanaition of this or maybe there is some way to pass the height, width numbers to the flashbox ?

Again… great piece of work. And about the downloads, I think most of guys who downloaded it also installed it so get a little bit more proud of yourself , you deserve it 🙂

Allright I found a cause and a solution.

The wrong size was caused by imported picture which was about 1300 x 600…

Here it becomes weird. I traced the picture inside flash and deleted it from library, erasing background (white) from the traced picture and resizing it to 560 x 400. (It was because I wanted to make a transparent map of the world appearing in lightbox style, but learned that it wasn’t possible with lightbox v2 for now)

Although original picture was not present , when I pressed match: content in modfy > document it showed me the original picture’s dimentions ! It would seem that flash remembers the last (biggest) dimmension of imported picture, and flashbox reads it. As I got a reply to my problem (thanks 🙂 it get’s probably too technical for me. I’ll pass.

I pasted the library to a new file and it works ok. I strongly recommend using pictures with background though as it can mismatch the size again.

Or you can always use a background with alpha=0 it also works well.

Greetings to all who managed to get out of the maze in past. I know what you feel , and it feels grrrrreat 🙂

Hi.
Not supporting internet explorer 6 is pretty damm frustrating can we have open working space on this problem. This is a lovey piece of software but this limitation will prpbably dump it in the bin unless i can find a work-around. I need to know what the problem is. I’m developing on a mac which makes it a little harder.

please lets fix this bug!

Cheers iAn

Hello, this is great to have a lightbox that can display .swf. I will try to implement it tonight in my site, but just a few questions/comments to start:

1) I noticed that you get a small flash movie with a loader while it loads the content, what about progressive .FLV or .MOV files?

2) I am working on a site for an event promotion company and we want to have an intro movie BUT we don’t want an annoying splash page. Instead, when the user first enters the actual page, a .flv or .mov appears inside the flashbox. The user can “skip” or “close” at will. Is there any way to trigger the flashbox when the page first loads?

Thank you, and I hope you can look into this. I think it would be a very popular feature.

Hi, awesome feature!

I can’t figure out how to do a group. I have a thumbnail on my front page which I’d like to turn into a group of pics currently uploaded into it’s own folder on the server. How do I actually do that??

Best
Reinar

Okay – I got it now; however the group of pics start with the last pict first e.g. 9 trhough 1 instead of 1 through 9. Tried to order the links – but no luck. Any clue..?

Hi there and many thanks for creating this and enabling the extension of lightbox. I’ve implemented flashbox on my blog but have noticed 2 things that I’m not sure are bugs or my code.

1. When the flashbox opens the swf I have targeted, 2 other flash elements on my page somehow swapDepths with flashbox and it is animating underneath the other 2 flash objects. Which interestingly are the only elements on the page using the and embed tag.

This does not happen when flashbox is deactivated and I’m only using lightbox. But then I can’t open flash movies. 🙁

2. When flashbox opens, I’m noticing that the border area is trying to resize to my browsers width, which leaves a 160×600 banner for example showing a scroller at the bottom of the browser and the banner have a very large white area around it.

Any clues or help with this would be greatly appreciated. Are these bugs or did I good up. I’d post a link but the site is far from complete, so I can’t show too much of it yet publicly. if you need a link let me know.

Thanks again matthijs for a wonderful plug-in, if I can get this working I’ll be super stoked.

Cheers,
Steve

Hi Steve,
thx for using FlashBox, and thx for taking the time to comment on it.

Lets get those questions answered:
1. I have noticed this also but only very recently … I was working on a page where I use sifr to generate titles and was using FlashBox. The same thing happened: FlashBox went underneath the other flash objects.

The only solution to this problem is to add wmode=transparant to the flash objects other then FlashBox:
read more about that here: http://kb.adobe.com/selfservice/viewContent.do?externalId=tn_14201&sliceId=1

To edit an existing HTML page, add the WMODE parameters to the HTML code.

1. Add the following parameter to the OBJECT tag:

2. Add the following parameter to the EMBED tag:
wmode="transparent"

2. That question is to hard to answer without a screenshot, as I explained in the email.

Hi Reinar,

I’m sorry for my late responds:

Okay – I got it now; however the group of pics start with the last pict first e.g. 9 trhough 1 instead of 1 through 9. Tried to order the links – but no luck. Any clue..?

I think you just ran into a bug.

I will try to fix it in the next release

Hi Maximiliano,

Sorry for my late responds.

1. FLV can’t be loaded in the current version of FlashBox, this is a feature which will be added in the future, but not in the next version of FlashBox. MOV can’t be played in Flash (at least not now) perhaps with the new FlashPlayer (version nine point something). For now you need to convert MOV to FLV!
2. It’s possible to start FlashBox as someone enters the page: it’s the same function used in tell-a-friend function (for an example click here) but it seems that the page needs to loaded first before FlashBox is triggered!

Matthijs,

Thanks for the above suggestion. That totally did the trick for problem 1. The second issue still exists and then while running some browser tests I noticed the following.

In IE7, on a PC, running x64, I get a page load error and the page will no longer load. If I hit re-fresh it will load sometimes and most of the time just keep trying to re-load but never resolving. When I do get it to load, it then recognizes anything rel=”” as a flashbox method and opens it with flashbox…Weird indeed. – *when I deactivate the flashbox plug-in this does not happen.*

Behaves erratically on a MAC, dual(no intel) with Firefox 2.0.9 and basically if a flash movie is underneath the flashbox or playing on the page the flashbox cuts in and out usually just shows an area the size of a 80px80p thumbnail.

Still excited about this and hoping this can all be resolved.

Thanks again for your help thus far! 🙂

Sorry… forgot to add, looks good in Safari for MAC version 3.0.3(522.12.1)
Actually works the best for me so far in Safari(mac), Firefox(pc) and Opera 9.24 build 8816 for(pc).

Also for the above IE7 bug, I have no add ons installed.

Cheers,
Steve

Hi Steve,

I wrote an answer to the IE7 bug over here. Sad to say I don’t have an answer that will fix the bug, because I can’t reproduce the error. Please read the comment I wrote.

thx

Matthijs

hi.

i really love yr great work..

I’ve been using such as lightbox, lytebox…these kinds of staff. Flashbox is the best one fit for me.

thx..;-)

does anyone knows if there is any other information about this subject in other languages?

Hi,

First of all, Very good job I really like the simple installation.

My question: is there an attribute to disable the send a friend button?

Thank you for helping
Guus Hamann

hello Matthijs,

i am loving your work, and finding flashbox very powerful and helpful in helping me to produce a very professional look to my website

my full website address for my test website which i am currently building is (as it wouldnt fit in your box)
http://www.firstholycommunion.co.uk/TEST/index.html

I am having 2 small queries, and i was wondering if you could be of assistance

Firstly;

i am finding that some of my images, are appearing like your ”robot 2” image in your example, and when they go to the full screen, the get the text at the bottom of them chopped off…..i have tried changing the %’s in my flashbox.js file, but this hasnt helped the situation, and i was wondering if you could recommend a recommended picture resolution to avoid this happening, or a way to get around this problem

Secondly;

and this one slightly puzzles me, and I think it might be down to my css somewhere, but, at the moment, I have encorpated the information from your style sheet into my style sheet and when I load my test website, http://www.firstholycommunion.co.uk/TEST/index.html i have a

Which then loads the page_communion_dresses.html into the content div, and flashbox works fine, However, if you navigate away from there, to another page, and then come back to it, or if it isnt loaded first, it wont open it asa flashbox image and just opens it into the current window
But if you physicall navigate to that link
http://www.firstholycommunion.co.uk/TEST/content/communion/page_communion_dresses.html
it still loads it up fine. :-S

I have tried editing everything, like paths etc etc, even put the flashbox_v01.4.swf into the relevant folders, and still have no luck

The only ideas I have left is that it is something to do with my csss or with flashbox not supporting ajax loadcontent ??

I was wondering if you could point me in the right direction, or if you had come across this sort of problem before

if you could get back to me with some feedback it would be greatly appricated

Thanks

From

Joey

Hello,

i think i may have resolved my first problem, i have re-sized my image to be 65% smaller than it originally was, so its now 351px 525px (scaled to 89px 134px)

but an official line as to the way this should be done would be appricated 🙂

thanks

from

Joey

Thanks – really beautiful lightbox – this flashbox 🙂

I have two thinks – “to do”:
1) display animated gif’s with animation
2) I had to copy flashbox_v01.4.swf to all subdirectorys i call flashbox from 🙁 otherwise it didn’t work

Thank you one more time

Jan Forgac

hi, i would like to know if this is possible:

1. Id like to disable Send a friend ?

or

2. Change the content below ::
=========================================
I found this amazing image at http://www.dddddm/photo-gallery/sss-2/

Check it out:
http://www.sdsss.com/photo-gallery/b-temple-2/?sendafriend=http://photos-sss.net/photos-ak-ss/sss/223/tre.jpg
=====================================
I want to remove the check it out text and link and instead only show the link to the album page. this because no one can access to my picture with a direct link after clicking/ modifying the email link.

or are there any way to protect the image from direct access.

Thanks a lot

I temporary stopped the future development of FlashBox…. Perhaps I will cleanup the files and make it open source.
So if you know Flash/Actionscript 2 I can send you the files, but if you can’t work with Flash: I’m sorry I can’t tell you when I will add these changes.

HI Matthijs Kamstra,
Thanks a lot for your support and it is good to hear that you are going to make it open-source. Please send me the “FLASHBOX” files.

Thank you,

Hi!

Great work!

Could you please send me the flash files too? I also want to remove the “send a friend” link.

Thx

Hi there!

I just encountered that the paint of JPEG’s displayed with Flashbox do not take color management into considration whereas FireFox does.

I do believe that’s an Adobe Flash issue and I’ve seen a few rumors that a setting can be passed to Flash to enable Color Management.

Any thoughts?

Thanks,
Stefan

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