Directory Opus Resource Centre

by **steve** » 20 Nov 2005, 02:46

With SWF Helper you can view thumbnails of Shockwave Flash files by Macromedia Inc.

Author: Alexander Mazuruk
Link: http://www.shuriksoft.com/opus/swfh.zip

Alternative Link: http://wisefm.com/swf-helper/

Note that this plugin is just for thumbnails of SWF files. You can already displays SWF files in the Viewer Pane using the ActiveX plugin which comes with Opus.

Also note that some the plugin may take a long time (several seconds) to identify some SWF files. If you're in a folder containing SWF files then having the plugin installed could make you wait longer for the file information columns, or thumbnails, to populate. (It only seems to affect some SWF, and you can always disable the plugin if you run into the problem a lot, so still give it a try if it sounds useful. I'm just mentioning it so people know how to fix the problem if they run into it.) --Leo

Update: Seems to crash Opus with some input files and the current (May 2009) version of Flash.

--Leo

by **Nathanian** » 30 Aug 2006, 14:37

Genial el pluing , esto mejora bastante las posibilidades de este explorador

gracias por compartirlo

by **sponk** » 18 Sep 2006, 23:40

is it possible to configure it that i can play flv (like it's used by google video, youtube, ...) with it?

by **leo** » 19 Sep 2006, 00:04

I may be wrong but I don't think the SWF Helper plugin displays anything in the viewer pane. It's just for thumbnails.

The ActiveX Document plugin displays flash files in the viewer pane but can't handle FLV.

As far as I can tell there isn't an ActiveX control for displaying FLV files since if you drop a FLV on Internet Explorer it won't display it. It seems they have to be turned into a Flash .SWF file to be playable.

I'm not an expert on Flash/FLV, though, so if anyone has information on how a program could display FLV files then please pass it on. I'd quite like to be able to display stuff saved from YouTube as well.

Edit: (Months later.) We now know how to make FLV play in the viewer pane. See the FAQ: Some movie/music formats don't play in Opus for help.

by **Zach** » 21 Jun 2007, 18:00

nudel wrote:I may be wrong but I don't think the SWF Helper plugin displays anything in the viewer pane. It's just for thumbnails.

Actually, to my surprise, it does, and that's why I'm here: to report a bug, not to bump an old thread.

Bug: When watching an animated flash file in the plug-in window, if one clicks on the "full-screen" button, it goes full-screen and works fine, but unfortunately, there is no way to exit full-screen mode other than killing the task.

(Alt-Tabbing and then right-click-->Close on the taskbar icon works, too.)

by **leo** » 21 Jun 2007, 23:14

Are you sure it's the SWF Helper plugin that's viewing the flash and not the ActiveX plugin?

Alt-F4 should allow you to close the full-screen window.

by **Zach** » 21 Jun 2007, 23:24

Well, how would I find out, or rather, how would I know what DOpus is using?

For the record, even though this is a new system with not much installed on it yet, I imagine I already have downloaded and installed the Shockwave Flash ActiveX plug-in during my brief stint with IE (before I reinstalled Firefox).

All I know is that if I have an interactive .swf selected in DOpus and then open the view pane, it plays and responds in DOpus' view pane perfectly fine. But if I click on the full-screen button in DOpus' viewer, it goes full-screen and still plays fine, but there's no way to exit full-screen mode. <shrug>

by **Zach** » 21 Jun 2007, 23:33

In retrospect, maybe this is just an Adobe Flash 9 problem in that it's expecting to only be operating inside a browser, and it's not, there's no mechanism for it to exit full-screen mode.

Come to think of it, I don't recall ever being able to go full-screen with an flash animation before (the option is not ever listed in Adobe's normal context menu), so the fact that DOpus can force it to go full-screen is actually rather cool regardless of the side-effect.

by **leo** » 21 Jun 2007, 23:48

When you view the SWF in the viewer pane (the one that lives inside of its lister) the titlebar of the pane should indicate which plugin is in use.

You can also right-click the viewer pane title bar and go into the Use Plugin sub-menu to see which plugin is active.

Alt-F4 will close almost all full-screen viewers. I can't remember whether or not the ActiveX plugin also allows you to click at the top/bottom of the screen to get the menu bar and toolbar to appear. If not it's something I will add as part of the re-write I'm doing.

by **Zach** » 22 Jun 2007, 00:03

The titlebar states that its a "Shockwave Flash Object," but sadly, it appears I that muddied this thread for no good reason.

Looking at the "Use Plugin" sub-menu as you suggested, SWF is not even listed as being installed--"Default" is what is selected, so I guess it's just ActiveX.

Sorry about all this, but out of curiosity, since I seem to be able to view swf files without the plug-in, should I install it anyway or just leave well-enough alone?

by **leo** » 22 Jun 2007, 00:47

Zach wrote:Sorry about all this, but out of curiosity, since I seem to be able to view swf files without the plug-in, should I install it anyway or just leave well-enough alone?

If you want thumbnails for SWF files then you should install the SWF Helper plugin; if not then there's no need to install it.

by **leo** » 24 May 2009, 15:33

I've been using all of the plugins lately for a list that I'll post soon. While checking out the SWF plugin again I noticed it can take a long time to process some SWF files which in turn can make you wait a long time for other file information to appear. I've added a note to the root post with more info.

Do still try the plugin if you want its features, but if you notice Opus slows down when populating file information columns, or when generating thumbnails, see if disabling it helps.