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Loading a SWF file using a coldfusion variable

Hello!

I have a website on which I need to display a .swf tutorial. There are 50+ different tutorial files. I would like to use 1 page to display the tutorials and just dynamically pass the swf file name into the object tag.

I have a database in which I store the .swf file name and it's associated topic ID. So the information stored in the database is:

TopicID, fileLocation (example: 1, myfile)

I'm passing the topicID through a URL variable which then drives my query:

<cfquery datasource="mydatabase" name="getCurrentTopic">
SELECT fileLocation
FROM Topics
WHERE TopicID = #url.location#
</cfquery>

If I quickly output the results of this query - it is displaying the correct fileLocation - so that much is working.

After that query, I have the following code:

<object classid="clsid:d27cdb6e-ae6d-11cf-96b8-444553540000" width="750" height="500" id="<cfoutput query="getCurrentTopic">#fileLocation#</cfoutput>" align="middle">
                        <param name="movie" value="<cfoutput query="getCurrentTopic">#fileLocation#</cfoutput>.swf" />
                        <param name="quality" value="high" />
                        <param name="bgcolor" value="#ffffff" />
                        <param name="play" value="true" />
                        <param name="loop" value="true" />
                        <param name="wmode" value="window" />
                        <param name="scale" value="showall" />
                        <param name="menu" value="true" />
                        <param name="devicefont" value="false" />
                        <param name="salign" value="" />
                        <param name="allowScriptAccess" value="sameDomain" />
                        
                        <object type="application/x-shockwave-flash" data="<cfoutput query="getCurrentTopic">#fileLocation#</cfoutput>" width="750" height="500">
                              <param name="movie" value="<cfoutput query="getCurrentTopic">#fileLocation#</cfoutput>.swf" />
                              <param name="quality" value="high" />
                              <param name="bgcolor" value="#ffffff" />
                              <param name="play" value="true" />
                              <param name="loop" value="true" />
                              <param name="wmode" value="window" />
                              <param name="scale" value="showall" />
                              <param name="menu" value="true" />
                              <param name="devicefont" value="false" />
                              <param name="salign" value="" />
                              <param name="allowScriptAccess" value="sameDomain" />
                        
                              <a href="http://www.adobe.com/go/getflash">
                                    <img src="http://www.adobe.com/images/shared/download_buttons/get_flash_player.gif" alt="Get Adobe Flash player" />
                              </a>
                        
                        </object>
                        
                  </object>

The .swf file is located in the same directory as the .cfm file. However, when I load this page, I only get a large white box and the "get flash" image/link. The swf file does not load.

I tried testing using the same structure on an <img> tag for an image file (that has the same name as the swf file except that it has a .jpg extension) and that works perfectly. I just can't seem to get the object tag to take my cf variable.

Thoughts?

_agx_

What is the value of #fileLocation#? Sounds like it could be a wrong value or path. The parameter value should be a url like:

http://yourserver.com/path/to/yourFile.swf OR ...
/path/to/yourFile.swf OR ...
yourFile.swf <=== relative to *.cfm script

Verify the file actually exists. If it does, try temporarily hard coding the value.

<cfif FileExists("/path/to/yourFile.swf")>File found<cfelse>Not found</cfif>
....
<param name="movie" value=""/path/to/yourFile.swf" />

tbarber210

ASKER

#fileLocation# includes the file name without the extension. So if the file name is myfile.swf, #fileLocation# contains "myfile".

Interestingly enough, when I try the "FileExists" function, it says that the file does not exist.

However, if I change over the embedding code to to be an <Object> tag with an internal <embed> tag, it does display. Perhaps there is something about the newer <object> & <object> code sequence that doesn't allow it to display properly? I'm not sure... but I do get the file to display with the <object> and <embed> tags.

It does have problems if I try to move the file into a subfolder (for organization purposes), it will not let me do:

<OBJECT classid="clsid:D27CDB6E-AE6D-11cf-96B8-444553540000"
WIDTH="750" HEIGHT="500" id="<cfoutput query="getCurrentTopic">#fileLocation#</cfoutput>">

<PARAM NAME=movie VALUE="<cfoutput query="getCurrentTopic">swf/#fileLocation#.swf</cfoutput>">

<PARAM NAME=quality VALUE=high>

<PARAM NAME=bgcolor VALUE=#FFFFFF>

<EMBED src="<cfoutput query="getCurrentTopic">swf/#fileLocation#.swf</cfoutput>" quality=high bgcolor=#FFFFFF WIDTH="800" HEIGHT="600"
NAME="<cfoutput query="getCurrentTopic">#fileLocation#</cfoutput>" ALIGN="" TYPE="application/x-shockwave-flash">
</EMBED>

I'm not sure why the FileExists function doesn't find the file though...

ASKER CERTIFIED SOLUTION

_agx_

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tbarber210

ASKER

Ah! That fixed it! Thanks for the help... it's now working perfectly!

_agx_

Welcome :)