Categories
Flash FlashBox WordPress Plugin

FlashBox 1.4 hits 200

Update: I’ve updated my wp-downloadBtn wordpress plugin so you can see the total download:

Yeah, Yeah, I know: nerd!
But I can’t help it feeling somewhat proud: 200+ people found my WordPress plugin FlashBox interesting enough to download.

So let’s say that not everybody who’s downloaded the zip is also installing it. Let’s say 1 out of 10 … 20 users?

Well that good enough for me: I working on FlashBox 1.5 with some new feature requested by FlashBox users and some wishes I had:

  • Redesign
  • Optional: Choose if you want a add a icon to your link when FlashBox is activate
  • Images “cached” into FlashBox
  • Optional: Use FlashBox without rel="flashbox"
  • Optional: “Powered by FlashBox” in the footer
  • …. (still working on all of this and more…)
Categories
Flash FlashBox WordPress Plugin

FlashBox v1.4 – IE6 blocks content

A new version of FlashBox. The main reason for this update is an IE6-bug (read the whole story here)
But by trying to fix this bug, I also created room for the send-a-friend option.

FlashBox is a on going project so for updated versions of it goto the Flashbox directory.

A two image gallery: an tribute to Gungrave. [1] – [2]

Find more examples on the FlashBox homepage.

Download WordPress Plugin – Download FlashBox v1.4

If you have previous versions of FlashBox installed, it’s a good idea to delete the old “wp-flashbox” directory.
Categories
FlashBox

FlashBox blocks content in IE6

Jacob Fresco pointed me to a bug that I would never ever have found without his help! So thx.

Hi, first, compliments on the great plugin. However, I do have some remarks. It seems that WordPress 2.1.2 with Wp-Flashbox 1.3 crashes Internet Explorer (=> version 6). When I disable Flashbox, everything works fine.

In Firefox, everything works like a charm… I cannot seem to find the cause of this problem. Any ideas?

Because I have a newly installed Windows XP, I only have IE7, Firefox 2 (my default browser) and for testing Opera (used for testing FlashBox)

So to test this bug I installed Multiple IE which makes it possible to install multiple versions of IE on your PC.
And of course tested IE6: no bugs, no crashes, no nothing, it worked like it supposed to.

Just to be sure, I tested IE6 today at work.
Woooo, that’s an extreme bug.

First you get:
Press ok

And then you get:
Operation aborted

A little search on the internet revealed the problem: “Press OK to continue loading the content of this page”
It’s the changes Microsoft made to IE in response to the Eolas patent lawsuit.

But I thought SWFObject would fix this? (internet explorer eolas changes and the flash plugin/)
But when I tested the demo pages at deconcept with IE6 I also got
“Press OK to continue loading the content of this page” but not the “Operation aborted”

So there must be something wrong with FlashBox. But before I can find out what it is… I have to know the difference between my home-computer and my work-computer, so I can find out what goes wrong.

Categories
Flash FlashBox WordPress Plugin

FlashBox v1.3

A new version of FlashBox, with one of my personal favorites in it: autoplay. I hope you like it.

FlashBox is a on going project so for updated versions of it goto the Flashbox directory.

A two image gallery: an tribute to Optimus Prime. [1][2]

Find more examples on the FlashBox homepage.

Download WordPress Plugin – Download FlashBox v1.3

Download wp-FlashBox v1.3 wp-flashbox_v01.3.zip (22,1 kB)

If you have previous versions of FlashBox installed, it’s a good idea to delete the old “wp-flashbox” directory.
Categories
FlashBox

FlashBox – Faq

Can I use FlashBox if I don’t use WordPress
Yes, you can!
But you will have to install FlashBox manually: the instructions for that can be found here

Why does FlashBox work differently on Firefox 2 Apple
I can’t stand this, but it’s true. I can’t get FlashBox to work the same in all browsers and OS. The complete story can be read here. I came to the conclusion that I can’t do anything about this problem. And just need to work around it.

Why is FlashBox for free?

Categories
FlashBox

FlashBox – new homepage

I have made a new homepage for FlashBox (let’s say it’s 80% ready).

Well not exactly..
It’s a new feature in WordPress 2: you can choose a template which will be used for Pages.
So in fact I’ve made a new template.

Whateva: I’ve started with the documentation of FlashBox.
The new homepage is a start, and soon there will be some post about Usage instructions, faq, todo/request, competition, etc.

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!


Categories
FlashBox

FlashBox – Usage instructions

Quicknavigation: How to use | How to install on WordPress | Tips and Tricks

How to use

Download the lastest-zip file: in there you will find:
FlashBox zip

+ wp-flashbox (32.4 kB)
|	+ csMinimal Flash plugin version is 8!
|	|	- flashbox.css (0.5 kB)
|	+ js
|	|	- browser_detect.compressed.js (1.6 kB)
|	|	- domFunction.compressed.js.js (0.4 kB)
|	|	- browser_detect.compressed.js (1.6 kB)
|	|	- flashbox.compressed.js (5.1 kB)
|	|	- swfobject.compressed.js.js (6.1 kB)
|	- flashbox_v01.swf (11.2 kB)
|	- readme.txt (3.7 kB)
|	- wp-flashbox.php (3.4 kB)

Part 1 – Setup

Flashbox uses Javascript files, don’t forget them to include in your header.





Include the Flashbox CSS file (or append your active stylesheet with the Flashbox styles).


Part 2 – Activate

Add a rel="flashbox" attribute to any link tag to activate the flashbox. For example:

image #1

Optional: Use the title attribute if you want to show a caption.

If you have a set of related images that you would like to group, follow step one but additionally include a group name between square brackets in the rel attribute. For example:

image #1
image #2
image #3

And because it also works with lightbox:

image #1
image #2
image #3

No limits to the number of image sets per page or how many images are allowed in each set. Go nuts!

Install on WordPress

Usage instructions

  • Download the latest-zip file and decompress into wp-content/plugins.
  • Go to your Plugins screen in the WordPress admin area, and activate “Flashboxâ€?.
  • Activate FlashBox in WordPress admin

  • In the code view, you get a “Flashboxâ€?-button where you can fill in url of the image, the caption and the groupname

Check all images: How to use FlashBox in WordPress.

FlashBox button in code editor
FlashBox url
FlashBox caption
FlashBox groupname
FlashBox result

Tips and Tricks

Minimal Flash plugin version is 8!

tip 1: How to create a gallery without showing every image.
put this in the source of you html page:
image gallery
and where every in the page

The display:none will make the whole block (div) disappear for the viewer but, it will still be “visible” for the FlashBox code

tip 2: How to create a large gallery without showing every image, but some step inbetween.
put this in the source of you html page:

image 1 - 25
---
image 26 - 50
---

The display:none will make the whole block (div) disappear for the viewer but, it will still be “visible” for the FlashBox code. In html it will look like this:

image 1-25
image 26 – 50

Categories
Flash FlashBox Open source / Freeware WordPress Plugin

FlashBox v1.2: fixed error with comma in title

I came across a big bug in the caption. If you placed a comma in the title (which is used for caption) example: title=”bla, bla, bla” the image and the captions got hussled. I fixed this and added some new features (read more).

You can follow my progress in the Flashbox directory. A gallery example: Badass Robots used in film.

Transformers Movie Optimus Prime
terminator
robocop
Robot B9 from Lost In Space
ABC Warrior from Judge DreddCain
ed209
droideka
Roy Batty
cylon-centuriancylons

Download WordPress Plugin – Download FlashBox v1.2

If you have FlashBox v1.1 installed, you should delete the directory!

Download wp-FlashBox v1.2 wp-flashbox_v01.2.zip (20,1 kB)

Categories
Flash FlashBox Open source / Freeware WordPress Plugin

FlashBox v1.1: fixed visibility bug FF2 (Apple)

Update #1: Tested on Opera on Apple and Pc

Update #2: Another bug seems to appear in Firefox 2 for the Mac: goto Flashbox directory, click on rel=”flashbox[test]” (you should see a mecha-robot with sword). If you scroll to the top of the page, FlashBox disappears and when you scroll down, you will see it again…

Update #3: Images of bug in Firefox 2 (Apple) [1] [2] [3]

Update #4: another bug, but for all browsers: if you type title=”bla bla bla, bla bla” (title with a komma) the images used in the won’t show.

I love feedback…. and the feedback on FlashBox was that it didn’t work correctly on Firefox 2 on the Mac.
This was a serious bug… and it took me some time to figure out where it was created.

You can follow my progress in the Flashbox directory. A gallery example: Badass Robots used in film.

Transformers Movie Optimus Prime
terminator
robocop
Robot B9 from Lost In Space
ABC Warrior from Judge Dredd
Cain
ed209
droideka
Roy Batty
cylon-centurian
cylons

So the code is tested on:

  • Firefox 2.0.0.2, Opera 9.10 and Safari 1.3.2 on Apple
  • Firefox 2.0.0.2, Opera 9.10 and IE 7.0 on Pc

Sadly I have no access to a Intel Mac with Flock

(Please let me know if it works / or not in other browsers)

Download WordPress Plugin – Download FlashBox v1.1

Download wp-FlashBox v1.1 wp-flashbox_v01.1.zip (19,2 kB)

I haven’t updated the link in wp-plugin.net, because I don’t want the same mistake (not testing on different browsers) twice