Adobe Contribute Basics: Tutorial 4

In this tutorial, we will use Contribute to insert a Flash movie (.swf file) into a Web page.

  1. Access Contribute and go the page you'd like to insert a Flash movie into.

  2. Click the Edit Page button in the top toolbar.

  3. Place your cursor in the area on the page where you would like to insert the image.

  4. Go to Insert > Flash > From My Computer.

  5. You might receive a warning that looks like the following (see below). You can disregard the warning. Click "OK"

  6. A dialog box will appear. Look for the text area labeled "File name." Type the following in the File Name text area:
    \\Pages\Courses\fall06\JR200\

    A list of folders should appear. Select the folder with your name (it will be Firstname_Lastname), then select the Contribute-Materials folder.

    What you should do if you can't access the Pages server

    If you are unable to access Pages, you can download the sample file you'll need for this tutorial by doing the following:

    1. Open Internet Explorer.

    2. In the Address bar (top of the browser), type:

    ftp://pages.emerson.edu/courses/fall06/jr200/firstname_lastname/contribute-materials/

    Note: You must use "ftp://". Do not use "http://".

    3. Internet Explorer will ask you for a username and password. Use your ecnet information.

    4. You will be presented with a list of files. Right click on animation_example.swf. In the menu that appears, select the "Copy to Folder" option. Select a folder on your computer's hard drive (the folder should be a location you can easily access later). Click the OK button.

    5. Internet Explorer will transfer a copy of animation_example.swf to your hard drive.

    6. Go back to the beginning of this tutorial. Use the copy of animation_example.swf you downloaded to your computer in place of the Pages version.

  7. Find the file titled "animation-example.swf" (it may appear as "animation-example"). Double click to open this file.

  8. Contribute will insert the Flash file into your Web page. You will notice a couple thing:

    • The text does not flow around the Flash movie.

    • The Flash movie loops over and over and over (don't stare at it too long, you'll go blind).

    We need to tweak both of these things.

  9. Click once on the Flash movie. Then go to Format > Flash Movie Properties.

  10. In the dialog box that appears, uncheck the option that reads: "Loop the movie continuously." (Note: For some strange reason, Flash movies default to a continuous loop). Leave all the other settings as they are. Click OK.

  11. The Flash movie will stop looping.

  12. Unfortunately, there is no easy way to make text wrap around a Flash movie in Contribute. As such, the best thing to do is to put the Flash movie on its own line and have the text appear beneath the movie. To do this, position the cursor directly in front of the first letter in your body text, then hit Enter to move the text to the next line. Your document will look similar to this:

  13. Publish your page.

  14. Congratulations! That's it!