April 28, 2001 - Playing Paused Flash Streams

Yehuda Shiran April 28, 2001
Playing Paused Flash Streams
Tips: April 2001

Yehuda Shiran, Ph.D.
Doc JavaScript

FlashSound JavaScript API supports a play-equivalent method, TPlay(). The TPlay() method accepts one parameter, the timeline. Use "/" to specify the main timeline (parent). TPlay() starts the playhead moving on the target timeline at the frame where playhead last stopped with the TStopPlay(), or at the first frame. It does not rewind the track. It will only start playback of sounds set to stream sync. It does not start playback of sounds set to event or start sync.

As a reminder, in order to sonify your page, follow this recipe:

flashsound.js in the HEAD section. Download.
  • Create a flashsound object in the
    • HEAD section.
  • Embed your SWF file in the
    • BODY section.
  • Create an anchor tag and set the
    • onmouseover event handler to the TGotoAndPlay() method.

    The following three links mimic a typical tape recorder control panel. The left link rewinds the stream with TGotoAndPlay(), the middle link pauses it with TStopPlay(), and the right one continues it from the position it was paused on, with TPlay(). Go ahead and mouse over the links:

    Rewind and Start  Pause  Continue

    Here is the source code:

    <HTML>
<HEAD>
<SCRIPT SRC="flashsound.js"></SCRIPT>
<SCRIPT>
  var mySoundObj = new FlashSound();
</SCRIPT>
</HEAD>
<BODY>
<A HREF="javascript://" onmouseover="mySoundObj.TGotoAndPlay('/',1)">Rewind and Start</A>
<A HREF="javascript://" onmouseover="mySoundObj.TStopPlay('/')">Pause</A>
<A HREF="javascript://" onmouseover="mySoundObj.TPlay('/')">Continue</A>
<SCRIPT>
  mySoundObj.autostart = false;
  mySoundObj.embedSWF("earsonly.swf");
</SCRIPT>
</BODY>
</HTML>

    Notice we assign autostart to false. The reason is that the stream example here was set to autostart upon embedding. We can override the Flash behavior with JavaScript commands.

    Here are links you can use to download flashsound.js and earsonly.swf:

    Download flashsound.js

    Download earsonly.swf