Flash Sound for Dynamic Sites - Page 5

From a scripting standpoint, remember that all the frames that compose a web page can be referenced using the FRAMES array. Internet Explorer and Netscape differ slightly in the way each reference frames and in the following sections I will show you how to cope with those differences.

The FRAMES array is an array of frame window objects and is a property of the WINDOW object. This FRAMES array has a LENGTH property that allows the programmer to know how many frames are inside the window. In the above case, the LENGTH property equals 2 since we've created two frames, frames[0] and frames[1] and our invisible frame is frames[0] since we´ve created it first.

Every new frame you create will simply add to the FRAMES array like frames[2], frames[3] and so on. So referencing them should be no problem.

To further simplify things, you can reference frames by name. If you don't know which element in the FRAMES array holds the page you wish to access, you can reference that page by using the frame name. In this tutorial we will be using name references.

Remember that to reference a frame by its name you should give it a name using the NAME attribute of the <FRAME> tag.

There are minor differences between Internet Explorer and Netscape when it comes to reference frames so please check the suggested syntax below:

    Internet Explorer:

            parent.frames['soundtown']

    Netscape:

           top.soundtown

Both examples return a reference to the frame named 'soundtown', after that you could use the document object on both browsers to access the web page inside the frame.

Whenever your user browses to a new page, it will be loaded inside frames[1] or, in our case, the 'webpages' frame; provided that the TARGET property for that page is correctly set. This allows to have the invisible frame at hand any time we need it. Be careful, don’t let new pages overwrite your frame.

Now we have the invisible frame, so what?. Well, the page that will load inside our frame (not to be shown in the browser window) will have a pair of <OBJECT><EMBED> tags to insert the Flash Movie that holds the sounds.

When you want your sounds to be played or stopped your sound functions will ask the Flash Movie in the invisible frame to do it, since that movie will always be there, you can call it from anywhere within your web site.