How to auto-resize ShockWave

Date: Thu Sep  3 08:45:54 MST 1998
From: Peter McBride <pete@otc.net>
Subject: How to auto-resize ShockWave

I finally figured out a way to get ShockWave to recognize how big is the frame it is currently in; once you have done that, it isn't too hard to have ShockWave then reconfigure itself for any size frame. For instance, I've written a clock that automatically fills the current frame, no matter how big or small it is.

This requires a little setup in HTML and one really dweeboid line in Director:

1. Create a GIF "dot.gif" that is 1x1 pixel, with the transparency set to the color of the single pixel. We're doing this so it doesn't appear when we draw it in step 2:

2. Add the following tag to the very FIRST line after the BODY of the HTML:

     <IMG SRC="dot.gif" WIDTH=100% HEIGHT=1 BORDER=0>< BR >
   

   This will help ShockWave learn how big the frame is. We're gonna use it find out what WIDTH evaluated to.

3. Add your ShockWave link:

    <embed width=100% height=100% src="myMovie.dir" name="testMovie">
   
   

4. Now here's the geeky Lingo. Put the following handlers into your shockwave file. The geeky bit is that we're including EvalScript as part of the external event handler; this means that no javascript functions are needed in the HTML document. It just works.

     on whatSize
       externalEvent("parent.document.testMovie.EvalScript(document.images[0].width);")
     end
   
     on EvalScript x
       alert "Window Width is:" && value(x)
     end
   

5. Add some trigger event to get WhatSize to fire off, such as an exitframe or mouseup...

6. And there you have it!