How to use it?

Just for demo purpose upload all the files (and ’script’ folder as well!) to the root of your theme, it doesn’t matter which one. Now you need to call ‘WP_flash_holder.php’ in Browser but full path to this file must be used because we are currently out of WP ‘native environment’:
http://yourdomain.com/wp-content/themes/your_theme_name/WP_flash_holder.php.
For a case you are about to include WP_flash.swf in any existing template file of your theme (for example sidebar.php), things will work normally.

NOTE:

Open WP_flash_holder.php and change path to match your domain and theme name otherwise it’ll not work. For example the line reading:

<script src="http://your_domain.com/wp-content/themes/your_theme_name/script/swfobject.js" type="text/javascript"></script>

As well as:

var so = new SWFObject( "http://your_domain.com/wp-content/themes/your_theme_name/WP_flash.swf", "wpflash", "550", "400", "8" );

…must be replaced with your own data!

Files in package…

• slidestyle.css
  Flash Player supports a subset of properties in the original CSS1 specification only so basic text formatting can be done here. Not much but enough for this tutorial.
• WP_flash_holder.php
  This file is here just to properly include/embed Flash file into HTML page. In source code you can read how to include Flash in native WordPress environment (for example sidebar.php).
• script > swfobject.js
  As already mentioned, swf must be properly embed so this is nothing but a piece of javascript code required to avoid page errors and Browser warnings.
• WP_flash.fla and WP_flash.swf
  Source and rendered file used for demonstration purpose.

It’s good to know

I guess some of you already plan to make a first Flash theme so it’s good to know that each and every WP theme must fulfill minimum requirements. Theme folder MUST contain the following files: index.php, style.css and functions.php (screenshot.png). In that case you can keep all of your Flash styles in style.css and embed Flash into index.php. Remember, it’s a long way to develop Flash theme and this tutorial is just a little tiny foot step on the long path up to the hill. Enjoy!

What’s the purpose of embeded Flash file?

Are you about to replace standard, HTML navigation with Flashed one? Do you want to make some recent posts slider in sidebar? Maybe some cool tag cloud in footer? Flash can be added whenever you like and do whatever you like. The most important fact about Flash is that it’s capable to load and process XML and that’s exactly how we are about to exchange data between WordPress and Flash. Once the data has been loaded into Flash options to display it on some non-standard and interesting way are endless.

Our task: Create latest Posts list

For the demonstration purpose we are about to generate the list of latest Posts and send it to embeded Flash file. Each list item will have a title, post date, number of comments, thumbnail image (if any), post category and a link back to post details.

Preparing backend file

Let’s create and save in our theme’s folder new file called ‘flash_recent.php’. I don’t know which theme you are using but it doesn’t matter in deed, it’ll work with any properly activated WordPress theme. Our new file should be able to connect to database and get required information. In the same time we’ll output results in standard XML format readable to Flash.

<?php

 // get connected
  require_once( '../../../wp-config.php' );


 // variables
  $xml = "";
  $num_of_posts_to_display = 5;


 // query posts
  query_posts( 'showposts=' . $num_of_posts_to_display . '&post_type=post&post_status=publish&order=DESC' );


 if( have_posts() ) : while( have_posts() ) : the_post();
  // category ID
  $category = get_the_category();
  // get first thumbnail path
  preg_match_all( '|<img.*?src=[\'"](.*?)[\'"].*?>|i', $post->post_content, $m );
  // format XML
  $xml .= '<item>';
  $xml .= '<title>' . $post->post_title . '</title>';
  $xml .= '<postlink>' . get_permalink() . '</postlink>';
  if( $m[ 1 ] ) $xml .= '<image>' . $m[ 1 ][ 0 ] . '</image>';
  $xml .= '<category>' . $category[ 0 ]->cat_name . '</category>';
  $xml .= '<catid>' . bloginfo( 'home' ) . '?cat=' . $category[ 0 ]->cat_ID . '</catid>';
  $xml .= '<date>' . date( 'M j, Y', strtotime( $post->post_date ) ) . '</date>';
  $xml .= '<comments>' . $post->comment_count . '</comments>';
  $xml .= '<excerpt>' . get_the_excerpt() . '</excerpt>';
  $xml .= '</item>';
  endwhile; endif;


 // output results
  echo $xml;


?>

In order to check whether an output is OK you should type in Browser’s address bar full path to ‘flash_recent.php’ file. For eample: http://yourdomain.com/wp-content/themes/some_themeName/flash_recent.php.

What next?

Well, next time we gonna learn how Flash can handle parsed XML. I bet many of you already know how but for the sake of those who doesn’t – expect to find an answer in part#2 of this tutorial.

Sofa Designer Corner is Flash made WordPress theme. It’s straight, clean and simple portfolio theme made for anyone capable to show his/her work in digital form. Beside still images, YouTube video is supported as well. This theme has also ‘Lightbox’ for image and video preview built in as well as automatic pagination control. In spite of the fact this is Flash theme, almost everything can be customized via WordPress Admin interface. With just a few clicks you can have a completely different layout and design without knowing any programming language.
For those people who are not willing to setup this theme on their own or don’t have time to read manuals or don’t know how, I’ll setup demo site free of charge. Drop me an email, I’ll reply as soon as I can.

Before you purchase this theme please check whether your server PHP version is at least 4.4.9. It’s crucial for Flash theme to function properly!

SOFA RealEstate is full Flash made WordPress theme. It goes on behalf of Realtors or Real Estate agencies because it has been customized and made for such purpose. Theme owners are supposed to design page header and probably do some typo tuning job (CSS). Everything else can be managed via WP Admin panel. Tilable backgrounds are also supported. Image and Youtube video thumbnails are generated automatically. This theme has built-in Post/Page image/video gallery (some kind of Flash Lightbox) as well as auto pagination control. It’s well documented, just follow instructions and you’ll need 10 minutes to make it ready.
SOFA RealEstate theme does not include source FLA file. It’s too complex, contains custom and third party classes which are copyright protected and is almost impossible to document/cover all the aspects of this theme. Many will try to decompile SWF but I bet they’ll give up even sooner.
Another thing you should know before you purchase this theme is that you will be able to use default font only. This is due to the fact that Flash does not allow embeded fonts to be replaced via CSS. I didn’t want to use shared library workaround because I guess many people do not know much about Flash. Better, yet simple solution is that I’ll re-render SWF with the font of your choice – free of charge, you only need to send it via e-mail. In case you need some extra customization – drop me a note.

Features

• Width: No limit (300px min.), float or fixed
• All Flash Player and JavaScript enabled Browsers ready
• Auto controlled/resized images and Youtube video
• All Latin characters support (requires UTF-8 database!)
• Many, many other options available via Admin panel

NOTE!
Some problems with data exchange between Flash and PHP reported on server running PHP version 4.2. At this point I’m not sure what’s an issue so I recommend ’stable’ versions of PHP; 4.4.9 or 5.2.8 – in order to make this theme function properly.
Sorry for any inconvenience but is good to know before purchase.