How to Externalize Flash Coding & JavaScript

One day out of curiosity, I was looking to see how I could How to Externalize the Flash coding. Needless to say it did take a bit of searching to find something on the internet that was suffice. The coding that can be externalized is the coding in the embed tag. The example below will guide you through the process. After the flash example, we will touch on externalizing JavaScript.

Externalizing Flash Coding

Just as you can externalize JavaScript to reduce the amount of coding in your webpage, you can also do the same with your flash coding.

The coding that ends up getting externalized is the coding in the embed tags. Please note that you have to include the embed tags as well. In the example below, the highlighted coding in the regular version is the coding that will be externalized in a .as file which we will call flash.as. The code will end up looking like #include "flash.as".

Regular Version

<object classid="clsid:D27CDB6E-AE6D-11cf-96B8-444553540000"
codebase="http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=6,0,29,0"
id="flashHeader"
name="flashHeader"
width="723"
height="236">
<param name="movie" value="http://www.YourFancyDomainName.org/flash/header.swf?section=home">
<param name="quality" value="high">
<param name="wmode" value="transparent">
<param name="menu" value="false">
<param name="base" value="/">
<embed src="http://www.YourFancyDomainName.org/flash/header.swf?section=home"
width="723"
height="236"
quality="high"
pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer"
type="application/x-shockwave-flash"
wmode="transparent"
base="/"
swLiveConnect="true"
name="flashHeader"
menu="false">
</embed>
</object>
 

Externalized Version

<object classid="clsid:D27CDB6E-AE6D-11cf-96B8-444553540000"
codebase="http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=6,0,29,0"
id="flashHeader"
name="flashHeader"
width="723"
height="236">

<param name="movie" value="http://www.YourFancyDomainName.org/flash/header.swf?section=home">
<param name="quality" value="high">
<param name="wmode" value="transparent">
<param name="menu" value="false">
<param name="base" value="/">#include "flash.as"
</object>

As you can see, the amount of coding has be greatly reduced and it is no harder than externalizing the JavaScript.

Externalizing JavaScript

Externalizing the JavaScript for your pages is not too hard. All you have to do is take the code between the script tags and place it in a JS file. Using the example below, the coding highlighted in green will be placed in a file that will be called hello.js. The one additional change that you will have to make is on the opening script tag, you will have to add src="http://www.AFreakyDomainNameHere.com/hello.js". You can see the changes below in the before and after examples.

Before

<SCRIPT LANGUAGE="JavaScript">
<!--

function Hello ()
{
alert("Hello World!")
}

//-->
</SCRIPT>

After

<SCRIPT TYPE="text/javascript" src="http://www.AFreakyDomainNameHere.com/hello.js">
</SCRIPT>

So that's really all there is too it. You will find out that not all JavaScript will be able to be externalized. Always test it out on a sample page first before going live on your site.

Gerard Manning
Search Engine Placement Specialist
Search Engine Marketing Agency :: Manning Search Marketing