OS support for Flash movies, inside file managers

[binary-nomad@hotmail.com]

What's the OS support for Flash movies, i.e. clicking on it instead of
playing in a browser.
Windows I *think* does, but I can't remember if that was Shockwave or
Flash. Whats the situation with Mac? Linux? ...... um.. Sun? Anything
else?

[Roy Schestowitz]

__/ [binary-nomad@hotmail.com] on Wednesday 14 December 2005 09:48 \__

> What's the OS support for Flash movies, i.e. clicking on it instead of
> playing in a browser.
> Windows I *think* does, but I can't remember if that was Shockwave or
> Flash. Whats the situation with Mac? Linux? ...... um.. Sun? Anything
> else?

Linux is incapable of generating SWF previews, or at least KDE is reluc-
tant to do so. I also use GNOME, but I doubt it's possible under this min-
imalist WM.

I quite look forward to the day when CPU capacity enables animations (e.g.
GIF's) and Flash files to appear as dynamic object in one's file manager,
even when the current directory is saturated with media. KDE does a stun-
ning job at converting the text file's icon into refletants of its con-
tents. PDF's are shown almost immediately as icons (front page/slide) ow-
ing to KGhostView. Images are, of course, shown as thumbnails.

SWF files will not be interpreted on-the-fly. I am fairly convinced that
even KDE 3.5 does not bother to generate of a preview of an SWF file al-
though, having said that, it does so with PDF's. It relies on very effi-
cient algorithms, which I suspect Macromedia (Adobe) cannot provide. In
principle, there is no substaintial barrier which prevents the developer
from doing so.

As for SWF files being openable within the browser, the user could set
file association so that upon clicking the object, the default browser
which is quick to launch (e.g. Konqueror in RAM) will show the Flash clip.
Konqueror as a file manager and a browser is one important integration,
much like Internet Explorer, so I don't see any downsides.

Hope this answers your question,

Roy

PS - I imagine that the answer will be similar for Mac OS X, only with Sa-
fari (uses KHTML) rather than Konqueror. Sorry for a messy reply. All of
the above is streams of consciousness adhered together very artificially.
I hope it conveys the main points nonetheless.

--
Roy S. Schestowitz | Useless fact: Every polar bear is left-handed
[url]http://Schestowitz.com[/url] | SuSE Linux | PGP-Key: 0x74572E8E
11:35am up 3 days 18:43, 8 users, load average: 0.65, 0.60, 0.51
[url]http://iuron.com[/url] - next generation of search paradigms

[binary-nomad@hotmail.com]

Roy Schestowitz wrote:

> Hope this answers your question,

Everything but :)
What I wanted to know was the situation across platforms - what about
the other ones like Mac and Solaris etc?
I'm not really particularly concerned with *previews* of it, as long as
it plays properly when clicked - what would be the point of a screenful
of little animations, "first pages" and "meaningful" icons anyway?
Sounds like a horrendous nightmare of a bad website to me..... :)
But thanks for the long reply, the info is very enlightening. Haven't
used KDE in ages, and very seldom used it in general - always nice to
know what efforts people are making in this area.

Bye! :)