For those of you wondering about putting flash headers in your wordpress themes, I’ve displayed that old banner header up above.
Flash headers can be installed on privately hosted wordpress blogs, but not on wordpress.com (the last time I checked they still were not permitted). One way that it can be made to work is the way I used, by installing the Kimili Flash Embed plugin and adding the embed code to my header.php. I’ve been getting a lot of hits on the wordpress.com forum even though the comment is quite old.
Instructions from the Kimili Flash website are as follows:
I’d like to use KFE to put a Flash header in my WordPress site. How do I do it?
You can put a kml_flashembed tag anywhere on your site, but it requires some familiarity with editing PHP and HTML files. With the Tag Generator, the plugin is set up to insert tags in posts very easily, but you can manually insert a tag in any of your theme files as well. Simply navigate to Appearance → Editor, select one of your current Theme’s PHP files, and insert a KFE tag among the HTML and PHP where you want your SWF to appear.
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05:20, 13.10.2009
I saw this and I would desperately like to place a flash banner I’m making as the header for my site above but I’m totally lost as regards editing the PHP and HTML files.
Help please?
John
12:49, 13.10.2009
Are you using a WordPress theme? Do you have Kimli Flash Embed installed as a plug-in? If the answer is yes, to both, first just try creating a flash image on a post and pay close attention to how the tag is set up (you’ll have to fill out the tag once it prompts you). When you see how that tag looks, simple create a new KFE tag of your actual header image and copy it to your header.php of your WordPress theme (using the theme editor).
00:57, 15.10.2009
It’s a WordPress theme I generated with Artisteer and yes I have installed Kimli.
I’m currently trying to work out how to embed flash into a post. Do i need to upload the video to my server and then point the tag towards that or can I just direct it to my computer?
Finding Kimli a bit non-ergonomic but then I am coming from a perspective of complete ignorance!
John
01:48, 15.10.2009
Hi John:
Yes, you’re on the right track, you do need to upload it to your server or even from YouTube, wherever it might be stored, and when you use the Kimil Flash tag it will prompt you for all the input, video dimensions, etc. It would be good to know the version of flash that created the video, particularly with older flash versions. Once you create that tag and see how it looks on a post, you’ll follow a similar pattern with a header, only placing the flash tag in the header.php using the theme editor.
04:03, 15.10.2009
I’m using Flash 9.0 but currently unable to get my video to display in a post. All I’m getting is the download flash button. I don’t whether it’s my path that’s wrong (I uploaded the file to a folder in my wordpress directory on my server) or some other settings.
I tried uploading the video to youtube to simplify matters but it wont play the .swf file.
04:17, 15.10.2009
I think YouTube uses flv over swf, not sure, I haven’t uploaded a video there in a while. Are you even getting the tag generator when you click on the flash embed button on a post?
What I do is add my video through the media library, that gives it a “WordPress generated” absolute path, which I in turn use in the Kimli tag.
Another thing to watch for is the permissions set on server folders, if you can call up an image using the URL, you’re ok. The same for videos if you have a player installed. Try calling the video through the URL where you have it stored and see if it shows up. What version of WordPress are you using, btw?
04:58, 15.10.2009
Currently running WP 2.8.4. Tag generator is working absolutely fine – it’s just that my path was wrong. I never even thought of uploading to the media library although funny enough I did the same with a gif I was testing and I dropped that straight into a post. If you look at the contact page of the site http://phillipmabeybespoke.com/?page_id=17 then you can see that the banner that I started work on is rolling nicely at the bottom of the page.
I could also view it directly through the url so no problems there.
I’ve fiddled with php files before in the editor and I’m only to aware of how easily you can screw them up. Do I paste the tag into the the very top of the header.php or somewhere around head?
John
05:41, 15.10.2009
I took a punt on editing the php and got it right – more luck than judgement! I’m currently experimenting with positions but you can see it in action at http://www.phillipmabeybespoke.com.
I do have a gap between the menu bar and the bottom of the flash video – any advice on shrinking/removing that gap?
Thanks for all your help and advice – very generous and much appreciated.
John
11:29, 15.10.2009
The gap is most likely a styles issue which can be found in your stylesheet (CSS) under the theme editor. It’s more than likely a width parameter being offset by a margin or padding. I’d be checking only in the header area of your theme stylesheet.
One thing you can do that I always do with issues like this, is using firefox and the Webdeveloper tool, which allows me to edit the css file without changing the actual code, once I find what theme margin is affected, by changing various theme calls, I go into the stylesheet and make the change. I hope this makes sense. Otherwise you can just make changes to all the header components in your stylesheet one at a time until you find it.
HTH,
Mahvin
15:44, 15.10.2009
hello
wordpress (2.8.4 / php 5.2.9) seems to ignore square bracket tags when trying to embed a flash slideshow with kimili flash plugin 2.0.3 to my header and to post with tag generator as well as with WP-SWFObject 2.3 as tags get displayed without being interpreted within my site
any hint apreciated.
this is part of my header.php code:
20:39, 15.10.2009
Funny that it is actually trying to upload a flash movie in the comments section.
My first question is: Do you have more than ONE flash plugin installed and activated at the same time? If you do, deactivate all but the KFE plug-in, and try again (which means removing all other tags and leaving the KFE tag. If not, let me know, I’ll look deeper into this issue and see what I can find out.
05:56, 13.11.2009
Hey Mahvin,
I’ve been experimenting with the Flash plugin and now I have a Flash banner and Flash add in this site – http://www.setandsquare.com which is all made in WP incidentally.
I made an entire Flash site which I embedded in a WP background – useful cos you can have a Flash site in the centre/side/anywhere on the page and then side bars for all your other stuff etc.
I’ve finished this site http://www.phillipmabeybespoke.com now. Remade the banner although it’s still a little quick. Also inserted Cincopa flash plugin into portfolio pages. As a plugin its a little clunky to use but great results. I’ve seen some very expensive websites that use the Cincopa flash image slideshow and it looks exactly the same.
Timo – did you get your problem sorted?
08:57, 04.12.2009
good site!