Content Editor WebPart: Flash

In part 2 of Using the Content Editor WebPart I want to talk about how you can integrate a Flash file into your site.

We’ve all seen flash before and we all know that you can create some great animations.  If you look around the internet many websites use flash for animations.

Some companies such as the BBC and SkySport have streamed videos through flash and YouTube using flash videos to stream their videos.

Many sites that have banner advertising, also user adverts that are now in SWF/flash format.

So lets add a flash file (.swf) to run on the front page of our SharePoint Site.

We first need to upload the swf file into a document library.

Create yourself a document library.  You might want to tell the document library to be hidden from the Quick Launch bar down the left hand side so visitors/members of your site can’t easily find the library.

Go to Site Action – Create and under Libraries click on Document Library.

Give your Document Library a name.  I’m going to call mine SWF.  Under Navigation, click No which will hide the library from the left hand side navigation.

I’m now going to upload my SWF file into the library and anything else that might be required for the flash file to run.

At this point we need to find out the URL of the SWF file as we need it later.

Right click on your flash file.  You will see your standard Internet Explorer properties and we need to copy the URL.  Click on Copy Shortcut and it will add the URL to your clipboard.  Paste this into Notepad or Word for reference later on.

We now need to add the Content Editor Web Part to our site.

Go back to the top of your Site and click on Site Actions, Edit Page and then Add a Web Part.

Find the Content Editor Web Part and add it to your site.

Click Edit on the webpart and then into Modify Shared Web Part.

Click on Source Editor and paste the following code

<embed src = "http://www.website.com/site/SWF/flash.swf" width = "500" height = "375"></embed>

If we have a quick look at the code here you will see three main areas.

Src = the URL of the flash file
Width = the width of your flash file
Height = the height of your flash file

We now need to add the code to the content editor web part.

Before we click save and finish we need to tell the code where to pull the SWF file from.

We copied it earlier, so we’ll now paste the URL of the SWF file in the code after src =.

Click Save and you’ll have your flash running in the page.