Deep linking and browser history have always been sore spots of Flash sites. There have been workarounds for a while but they were pretty difficult to implement.
Being able to link directly to a page, bookmark it and using the browers back and forward buttons are standard functionalities that people are used and expect from a site. When it doesn't work, people get annoyed. Hell do they know or care that the site is made in Flash and using the browsers history is difficult to implement.
Anyway, when time is tight on a project, such features are often not impelemented.
Enter
SWFAddress, an easy to use piece of javascript and actionscript that allows us to deeplink to Flash movies and give people control over their browser history navigation in Flash. It seems easy to implement and once you've done it once, it should be a breeze to set it up for future projects.
Furthermore, the wonderfull piece of code is based upon the widely used
SWFObject, a popular javascript solution for embedding Flash that solves the recent annoying change in internet explorer that forces you to click on a flash movie to activate the content.
I'll try it out soon myself for my next Flash project.
Credits for bringing this to my attention go to my colleague Flash cowboy
Nico. He threatened to shoot me if I didn't add credits, so here goes :)
Hmmm.. so far for the swfAddress.
It's been a while since I posted something here.
Whenever blog activity is low, you can expect bloggers to be doing other things. Well yeah, it's been pretty busy. I've been on holiday for a while, after that moved to Antwerp (still haven't got internet!) and started working at
These Days as a multimedia developer. Things might have been a bit silent, but they are gooood.
Cheerio, see you later.
