Dreamweaver Extensions

Working with XML content

Open the news.xml file in Dreamweaver (File -> Open), to change the content of your Advanced News Scroller. Also, you can open the XML content file through FlashDevelopment24 Wizard (Right click on Flash Object, then FlashDevlopment24 Wizard -> Advanced News Scroller). After that, in the category of 'General', click the 'Edit' button near the 'Source' field.

The following example shows the basic structure of the content XML file:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<component>
   <news>
      <short>
         <date>01.01.2011</date>
         <title color="0xB0490A" font="Myriad Pro" font_size="14">TITLE 1</title>
         <caption color="0x707070" font="Tahoma" font_size="11">Caption line 1</caption>
      </short>
      <full>
         <date>01.01.2011</date>
         <title color="0xB0490A" font="Myriad Pro" font_size="18">TITLE 1</title>
         <img src="media/image.jpg" width="100" height="75" />
         <caption color="0x707070" font="Tahoma" font_size="11">Caption line 1</caption>
         <caption color="0x707070" font="Tahoma" font_size="11">Caption line 2</caption>
         <caption color="0x707070" font="Tahoma" font_size="11">Caption line 3</caption>
      </full>
   </news>
   <news>
      <short>
         <date>02.01.2010</date>
         <title color="0xB0490A" font="Myriad Pro" font_size="14">TITLE 2</title>
         <img src="media/image.jpg" width="70" height="50" />
         <caption color="0x707070" font="Tahoma" font_size="11">Caption line 1</caption>
         <caption color="0x707070" font="Tahoma" font_size="11">Caption line 2</caption>
      </short>
      <full>
         <date>02.01.2010</date>
         <title color="0xB0490A" font="Myriad Pro" font_size="18">TITLE 2</title>
         <caption color="0x707070" font="Tahoma" font_size="11">Caption line 1</caption>
         <button caption="READ MORE" link="empty.html" target="_self" margin_top="5" />
      </full>
   </news>
   <news>
      <short>
         <date>03.01.2010</date>
         <caption color="0x707070" font="Tahoma" font_size="11">Caption line 1</caption>
      </short>
      <full>
         <date>03.01.2010</date>
         <title color="0xB0490A" font="Myriad Pro" font_size="18">TITLE 3</title>
         <img src="media/image.jpg" width="285" height="200" video="media/video.flv" />
         <caption color="0x707070" font="Tahoma" font_size="11">Caption line 1</caption>
      </full>
   </news>
   <news>
      <short>
         <date>04.01.2010</date>
         <img src="media/image.jpg" width="70" height="50" />
         <caption color="0x707070" font="Tahoma" font_size="11">Caption line 1</caption>
      </short>
      <full>
         <date>04.01.2010</date>
         <title color="0xB0490A" font="Myriad Pro" font_size="18">TITLE 4</title>
         <img src="media/image.jpg" width="150" height="95" audio="media/audio.mp3" />
         <caption color="0x707070" font="Tahoma" font_size="11">Caption line 1</caption>
      </full>
   </news>
</component>

In this example you can see 4 news items. Each news item has short part and full part. Code of short part is shown when "Short" mode is activated. And code of full part is shown when "Full" mode is activated.

For example let's take first news. In Short part you can see date line, title and caption (text) line. In Full part you can see also date line, title, captions (text) lines and media line, in this news item media is a picture.

Second, third and forth news are almost the same, they just differ in the number of captions and in the third there is a video file as media and a button. In the forth an audio file as media are used.

<component>

Description
Main tag and contains the description of the component.

<news>

Description
Contains the news item. If tag has link attribute, so when you click over the news, this news will be opened according the link. If tag hasn't link attribute, so when you click over the news, a full news description will be opend.

Optional attributes

  • link, The URL from which to obtain the document.
  • target, Specifies the window or HTML frame into which the document should be loaded. You can enter the name of a specific window or select from the following reserved target names:
    • _self specifies the current frame in the current window.
    • _blank specifies a new window.
    • _parent specifies the parent of the current frame.
    • _top specifies the top-level frame in the current window.

<short>

Description
Contains the short description of the news. Following tags can be placed in the content of the news: <date>, <title>, <img> and <caption>.

<full>

Description
Contains the full description of the news, which is displaying on mouse click over the news item. Following tags can be placed in the content of the news: <date>, <title>, <img>, <caption> and <button>. The differnece between short and full descriptions is that full description can contain audio/video content and link button.

<date>

Description
Add the date to the news description. Appearance of the date you can edit in tab 'Elements' in Flashdevelopment24 Wizard (Right click on Flash Object, then FlashDevlopment24 Wizard ->Advanced News Scroller).

<title>

Description
Add a title to a news description.

Attributes

  • font, The font of the text. Embedded fonts: "Eurostile LT Std Ext Two", "Myriad Pro", "Impact". Use the embedded fonts, this will improve their quality.
  • font_size, The size of the font.
  • color, The color of the text.

<img>

Description
Add a picture to a news description.

Attributes

  • src, The absolute or relative URL of the image file. A relative path must be relative to the HTML file. Absolute URLs must include the protocol reference, such as http://.
  • width, The width of the image.
  • height, The height of the image.

Following attributes are used only in full description of the news in <full> tag:

  • align, A string that indicates the alignment of the image. In Short description of the news, image is aligning according the right edge.
  • audio, The absolute or relative URL of the audio file. A relative path must be relative to the HTML file. Absolute URLs must include the protocol reference, such as http://.
  • video, The absolute or relative URL of the video file. A relative path must be relative to the SWF file. Absolute URLs must include the protocol reference, such as http://.

<caption>

Description
Add an article to a news description. News can contain more than one article.

Attributes

  • font, The font of the text. Embedded fonts: "Eurostile LT Std Ext Two", "Myriad Pro", "Impact". Use the embedded fonts, this will improve their quality.
  • font_size, The size of the font.
  • color, The color of the text.
  • bold, Renders text as bold.
  • align, A string that indicates the alignment of the text.
  • margin_top, The top margin of the paragraph, in pixels.
  • margin_bottom, The bottom margin of the paragraph, in pixels.

<button>

Description
Add a button with a link at the bottom to a news description. The button can be placed only in <full> tag. The appearance of the buttons you can edit in tab 'Elements' in Flashdevelopment24 Wizard (Right click on Flash Object, then FlashDevlopment24 Wizard ->Advanced News Scroller).

Attributes

  • caption,The caption of the button.
  • margin_top, The top margin of the button, in pixels.
  • margin_bottom, The bottom margin of the button, in pixels.
  • link, The URL from which to obtain the document.
  • target, Specifies the window or HTML frame into which the document should be loaded. You can enter the name of a specific window or select from the following reserved target names:
    • _self specifies the current frame in the current window.
    • _blank specifies a new window.
    • _parent specifies the parent of the current frame.
    • _top specifies the top-level frame in the current window.