Play flash below DHTML menu

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In this post I will tackle the issue of trying to get flash to play underneath the DHTML/JavaScript dropdown menu.

We have just gone live with the Sharman & Campbell website, while working on this site I ran into a problem with the dropdown menu items displaying behind the flash animation. The solution to this is actually quite simple. Just change your wmode setting to out of a windowed mode. For those that want to rush off and fix the problem here the sample code.

Using AC_RunActiveContent.js

'wmode', 'window',

becomes

'wmode', 'opaque',

Using object tags

<param value="'window'" name="wmode">

becomes

<param value="opaque" name="wmode">


This solution works for both IE and Mozilla Firefox on my PC.

Why this works

According to adobe (http://livedocs.adobe.com/flash/8/main/wwhelp/wwhimpl/common/html/wwhelp.htm?context=LiveDocs_Parts&file=00000852.html) the wmode attribute/parameter has the following 3 values

Window plays the application in its own rectangular window on a web page. Window indicates that the Flash application has no interaction with HTML layers and is always the topmost item.

Opaque makes the application hide everything behind it on the page.

Transparent makes the background of the HTML page show through all the transparent portions of the application and can slow animation performance.

So basically when you use Window wmode the flash is playing in its own window above the HTML page, you can use either Opaque windowless and Transparent windowless to interact with HTML layers, letting layers above the SWF file block out the application. The difference between the two is that Transparent allows transparency so that HTML layers below the SWF file might show through if a section of the SWF file has transparency.

Performance Issues
A word of warning, using Wmode windowless can have negative impact on the performance of your flash, so don’t use it if you don’t need to.

Shameless Plug
Sharman & Campbell is a South African based importer, exporter and distributor of parts and accessories to the outdoor power equipment industry.

Intelligent Building SEO

I’m in the process of doing the SEO (Search Engine Optimization) for Intelligent Building.

To do this I will

• Ensure that each pages has the best possible Meta Tags (more on this in a later post)
• I list it on our ISP division website(http://www.firsttech.net/) as well as the website for our CMS (http://www.jitpublisher.co.za/) and will I link to it from our group website(http://www.firsttech.co.za/).
• I’m also linking to it from this blog post
• And finally I’m adding it to my Google Webmaster and Live Search Webmaster accounts, as well as manually submitting the URL to several search engines.

There are a few other tactics that I use, but I’ll keep those a secret for now.

Intelligent Building (Pty) Ltd is part of the First Technology Group

The first post is always the worst

How to survive your first blog post.

So you decided to share your great and mighty thoughts with the world, and it seemed like a brilliant idea at the time. You excitedly created your new blog, not letting the lack of pronounceable URL’s hamper you. A template is chosen, and now you sit with a bank page… and a blank mind.

Relax, all the great bloggers have faced this problem. Some jump right in with their subject matter, while others write a “welcome to my new blog” post. Either way is fine.

Here is my advice for surviving this situation;
1 Keep it short
2 Don’t bother with originality, that can come later.
3 Just get it over and done with.

The key is to just post something, it doesn’t have to be perfect, you will get better with time.

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