Cannot arrange items

[delphi]

On one page, I am having 2 items on it. One is a Flash file and another one is a jpg file. I am trying to arrange the flash file to back (Behind the jpg file), it does not go behind.

Anybody got any idea?

[Brett]

Short answer: Can't be done.

Long answer: Do a search on the forums here you'll find some lengthy discussions.

[delphi]

My goodness, just spend almost for $300 for a piece of software that has the feature Arrange when right click but it does not work as it suppoed to....

I don't think this is complicate to program, why isn't there a fix for this?

[Brett]

The problem is that the flash object is hosted inside of a window and the image file is just drawn on the background window. So, the flash window is always on top of image objects since they are a part of the BG window. It is not a bug per-se but rather an issue with Macromedia flash.

[Lorne]

I don't think this is complicate to program, why isn't there a fix for this?
It is complicated. In fact, because of the way flash is rendered, it's practically impossible to implement that sort of thing in autoplay 5.0. Autoplay uses very advanced drawing methods to make things like object transparency possible, and the flash renderer is only designed for rendering to its own window. Because flash is in a separate window, there is no way to arrange it behind autoplay's objects.

We have ideas for architecture changes that could make it possible, and this is something we plan to investigate for the next major version (6.0).

[Worm]

You can use the SetMask DLL that I've developed to mask out the area of the Flash Movie that you want your image to show through.

here's a thread with an example:
http://www.indigorose.com/forums/showthread.php?t=10117&highlight=animated+flash+background

for more on SetMask follow the link in my signature.

On one page, I am having 2 items on it. One is a Flash file and another one is a jpg file. I am trying to arrange the flash file to back (Behind the jpg file), it does not go behind.

Anybody got any idea?

[Lorne]

Good tip, you can use the setmask.dll to reveal a portion of the autoplay area behind the flash object. You just can't place an image object translucently over the flash object (e.g. you can't have a button with a dropshadow appear superimposed over the flash object).

[scotland42]

I was recently trying to do something similar. In my program I want to show a flash animation if the processor is good enough, if not, it will show a JPG

speed = Registry.GetValue(HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE, "HARDWARE\\DESCRIPTION\\System\\CentralProcessor\\0", "~MHz", true)

if (String.ToNumber(speed) < 1000)
then
Flash.SetVisible("Flash2",false)
Flash.SetEnabled("Flash2",false)
Image.SetVisible("Image1",true)
Image.SetEnabled("Image1",true)

end

[rhosk]

Using <div> layers (z-index) in a web object, you could have a jpg over Flash.