Kimili Flash Embed for Textpattern - v. 0.4

Update! 1.24.06
This article is officially outdated. There’s a brand new version of KFE out with many new features. You can find it at the new permanant home of KFE.

Here we go once again.

The Kimili Flash Embed for Textpattern has been updated, this time expanding the functionality to give you access to all sorts of Textpattern variables so you can pass them into your movie. Does your flash movie need to know the current section? No problem. How about the ID of the current article? Or the site name, slogan or language? Not a problem either. These variables and many more are all easily accessible with this new version of the plug in, so have at it.

• kml_flashembed_tp_04.zip (13.38KB)
  Get the latest version, always available at the KFE Home.

The Basics

If you’ve downloaded a previous version of the Kimili Flash Embed, the contents of the Zip file should look familiar to you. In it you’ll find the following files:

• flashobject.js – This is Geoff Stearn’s Javascript
• kml_flashembed.txt – This is the plugin file
• readme.txt – Go figure

If you’re updating a previous install, all you have to do is reinstall the plugin itself in your Textpattern administration section. The JavaScript is the same, so there is no need to overwrite that.

If this is a new install for you, in addition to installing the plugin, you’ll also have to make the javascript file accessible by your page templates. You can do this by putting flashobject.js in a folder called js off of the root of the site. Then add the following line of code in the head of your page templates:

<script language="JavaScript"
        type="text/javascript"
        src="/js/flashobject.js">

You can add Flash content to your pages using a tag like this in your articles or anywhere else in the textpattern environment (Article Forms are extra-special – more about this below):

<txp:kml_flashembed movie="filename.swf" height="150" width="300" />

What’s New?

This version of the plugin gives you access to the pretext, prefs and thisarticle Textpattern global arrays. Contained within these three arrays are most of the variables relevant to both your articles and your Textpattern install.

Since these three arrays are split open by the plugin, you have direct access to all the goodness contained within each one. According to Risedesign, these resulting variables for each array include:

pretext

1. $id – The current article’s ID
2. $s – The current section
3. $page – The current page template name
4. $css – The name of the CSS file being used
5. $c – The current category, if any
6. $q – The current search query, if any
7. $count – Not sure about this one
8. $pg – The current page, if any
9. $p – Not sure about this one
10. $next_id – The next article’s ID, if any
11. $next_title – The next article’s title, if any
12. $next_utitle – The next article’s URL-only title, if any
13. $prev_id – The previous article’s ID, if any
14. $prev_title – The previous article’s title, if any
15. $prev_utitle – The previous article’s URL-only title, if any
16. $path_from_root – The path from the root in config.php
17. $pfr – Not sure about this one
18. $url_mode – “1” for clean, “0” for messy
19. $sitename – Outputs the Site Name, as defined in the admin tab

prefs

These settings come from your Site Preferences under the admin tab, as well as the config.php file.

1. $prefs_id – Not sure about this one
2. $sitename – The site name
3. $path_from_root – The Textpattern installation subdirectory.
4. $siteurl – Kind of obvious, huh?
5. $site_slogan – This one too.
6. $language – The language you’ve set in preferences.
7. $timeoffset – The time offset of the server
8. $dateformat – The date format for articles
9. $archive_dateformat – the date format for archived articles
10. $url_mode – “1” for clean, “0” for messy
11. $send_lastmod – Send last modified header – “1” for true, “0” for false
12. $ping_weblogsdotcom – Ping weblogs.com – “1” for true, “0” for false
13. $logging – Returns “all” if set to “All hits”, “referer” if set to “Referers only” or “none” for “None”.
14. $record_mentions – “1” for true, “0” for false
15. $use_textile – “2” for “use textile”, “1” for “convert linebreaks”, “0” for “Leave Untouched”
16. $use_categories – “1” for true, “0” for false
17. $use_sections – “1” for true, “0” for false
18. $use_comments – “1” for true, “0” for false
19. $comments_moderate – Moderate comments, “1” for true, “0” for false
20. $comments_on_default – Comments on by default?, “1” for true, “0” for false
21. $comments_default_invite – Default comment invitation
22. $comments_dateformat – The date format for comments
23. $comments_mode – “1” for “popup”, “0” for “no popup”
24. $comments_sendmail – Mail comments to author, “1” for true, “0” for false
25. $comments_disallow_images – Disallow user images, “1” for true, “0” for false
26. $comments_disabled_after – “0” for never, “7” for one week, “14” for two weeks, etc.
27. $rss_how_many – Set in config.php, how many articles should be used in the RSS feeds as standard.
28. $lastmod – Contains a formated timestamp when the site, all-in-all, was last modified.
29. $logs_expire – Set in config.php, how many days a log entry should be stored in the database.
30. $img_dir – Set in config.php, The directory where you upload images.
31. $version – The version of Textpattern you are using.

thisarticle

These variables are special, because they are only available when you use the <txp:kml_flashembed /> tag within an article form. If you’re not sure what I mean by that, go to the presentation / forms tab in your admin and open up any form with a type set to article. (default, for example) If you put a flash embed tag in there, then that instance of the tag will have access to the following variables:

1. $thisid – The ID of the article being rendered
2. $author – The author of the article being rendered
3. $posted – The article date
4. $if_comments – “true” or “false” depending whether or not the article has comments
5. $comments_invite – The formatted <a> tag for the comment invitation
6. $comments_count – The number of comments the article has
7. $permlink – The formatted a tag used to view the article
8. $title – The article title
9. $excerpt – The article excerpt
10. $body – The textiled body HTML
11. $url_title – The title of the URL of the article, if specified
12. $category1 – The primary article category
13. $category2 – The secondary article category
14. $section – The section the article is filed under
15. $keywords – The “Keywords” field, as is
16. $article_image – The “Article Image” field, as is

So What Do I Do With All This?

All of the above variables are accessible via the fvars attribute of the <txp:kml_flashembed /> tag. Let’s say you wanted to pass your movie the current section in a variable named section. The fvars attribute would look like this:

fvars=" section = $s "

If you wanted to pass the section and the ID of the current article to the movie, you could do so like this:

fvars=" section = $s ; id = $id"

Of course, you could still mix these with static variables, like this:

fvars=" section = $s ; id = $id ; links = /files/links.xml "

Just remember, in all the examples above, the variable names within the fvars attribute match up with variable names within your flash movie.

One Other Thing

In previous versions of the plugin, you could assign an ID to your flash movie using the attribute named id. Since there is now access to a variable named $id which refers to the article ID number, a naming conflict arose. In order to solve it, I had to rename the attribute that tags the flash movie with a unique ID. So starting with version 0.4, you will need to use the attribute fid to assign an id to the flash movie.

Also, if you choose not to assign an ID, one will be generated automatically for you based on the .swf filename. For example, if your .swf file is named mymovie.swf, the auto-generated ID will be fm_mymovie.

All of the other attributes remain the same. You can find a list of all of them in the readme.txt file of in the original post.

That’s about all there is to this update. Enjoy, and let me know if you find any issues with it.

©MMII—MMX Michael Bester