How to Make a Flash Widget

Widgets are small and portable snippets of code that display links or images in a contained area of a website. While widgets are primarily used to display text content that is updated on a regular basis, such as a blog, they can also be used to display other things such as animated Flash videos. Making a Flash widget can be especially useful if you want to display Flash content in a message board or web page that does not allow Flash code. You can turn your Flash video into a widget by using an online widget creation tool.

Instructions

1. Open your computer's web browser. Click on the address toolbar at the top end of the web browser and navigate to a website that offers a Flash widget creation tool such as "WidgetBox" or "SproutBuilder" (see Resources below).

2. 

   Click on the "Make A Widget" button at the top right corner of the web page. Wait for the next webpage to load in your browser, and then click on the red button labeled as "Flash" at the bottom of the site.

3. 

   Copy the embed code created by the Macromedia Flash program for your existing Flash file. Paste the code into the text box at the bottom of the webpage. Type in the web address of the Flash file into the text box instead if your Flash program is already posted on a website. Type in a name for your new Flash widget in the "Name" text box, and then click on the "Continue" button.

4. Enter in the size that you want your widget to be displayed in a website by entering in a pixel height and pixel width in the corresponding text boxes. Click on the "Type" drop-down box, and then choose "Hidden" if you want to make the Flash widget to appear transparent in a website. Click on the box corresponding to the background color that you want to appear behind the Flash video if you don't want it to be transparent.

5. Click on the "Create Widget" button to receive the widget embed code. Copy the code, and paste it into a website or a message board post to display your Flash program in the widget.

Tips & Warnings

• If the Flash file in your widget opens a second window it will likely get caught by pop up blockers because of how widgets interact with a web browser. You can get around this problem by specifying that the link it opens goes to "_blank" instead of directly to the current browser window that is open. You should also use the "onRelease" Flash code in place of the "onPress" Flash code if you have a code segment that opens a new window when a user clicks on something.

References

• Making Flash Widgets with WidgetBox
• How to Use Sproutbuilder Widget Maker

Resources

• Make Flash Widgets With WidgetBox
• Make Flash Widgets at Sproutbuilder