Alfresco Share Flash Preview

[benswitzer]

Good day.

Been kicking the tires on the latest beta of 3.0 and have been having an issue with the flash document preview.  I have only ever seen the dark grey box with the spinning patter in the middle.

I've installed the Windows Setup as per the instructions with MySQL.  There no exceptions being through at the default log level.

Do I have to install the other SWF Tools?  Thoughts on how I might get this to work.

Thanks,
Ben

[chr_ypma]

https://issues.alfresco.com/jira/browse/ALFCOM-2081

Please add comments if you want to.

[jeckman]

To recap what I've narrowed down.

I'm currently running Alfresco Labs 3.0C, using the Tomcat bundle, with MySQL, on a Mac OS X box.

swftools compiled from source:

$ pdf2swf –version
pdf2swf - part of swftools 2008-10-27-2255‍‍

Basically, If I take pdf2swf away (change it's name so that the command isn't in the path) I get single-page previews. (Multipage pdf uploaded, the preview is just the first page).

If I take Flash away, I get no previews - just a note to install Flash to get them.

If I leave pdf2swf present (these are all with Firefox 3, but I think it is the flash version difference that is significant):

With Flash Player 9.0.47:
- Flash preview works - multipage preview of PDFs with next/previous working
- Flash upload is broken, which means you can't upload at all.

With Flash Player 9.0.151:
- Flash preview fails, with spinning beach ball. SWFs exist, but don't display.
- Flash upload works.

With Flash Player 10.x:
- Flash preview fails, with spinning beach ball.
- No flash upload, but the system recognizes that and offers non-flash version

So, is this an swftools problem, or as the Jira entry suggests some kind of Flex level problem consuming the movies swftools creates?

Is it that Flash Player 9.0.47 works in some way that all the others are broken, or is just less picky, and thus "succeeds" with an SWF that it should not be displaying?

Looks like the best option for me for now - I was trying to do a demo and screencast it - is to remove swftools, so that at least I can see previews, and have upload working.

I guess I could cheat and record the screencast in pieces - one showing upload working and one showing preview working, with the magic of the cutting room floor in between, but that's not really my style. 

[steve]

Hi,

If it helps, I have the following versions working for file upload and flash preview:
Shockwave Flash 9.0 r124 (in FF3 on my Mac)

pdf2swf - part of swftools 2008-10-08-0802 (on RHEL5 server machine)
You can download that version here: http://www.swftools.org/swftools-2008-10-08-0802.tar.gz

Hope that helps somewhat,

Steve

[jeckman]

If it helps, I have the following versions working for file upload and flash preview:
Shockwave Flash 9.0 r124 (in FF3 on my Mac)

pdf2swf - part of swftools 2008-10-08-0802 (on RHEL5 server machine)
You can download that version here: http://www.swftools.org/swftools-2008-10-08-0802.tar.gz

Thanks Steve! I was able to get everything working with the same configuration on my Mac OS X server.

I'll now try the later Flash 9 player as well.

Perhaps the issue really was with something about the way my version of SWF Tools handled the pdfs?

[chr_ypma]

If it helps, I have the following versions working for file upload and flash preview:
Shockwave Flash 9.0 r124 (in FF3 on my Mac)

pdf2swf - part of swftools 2008-10-08-0802 (on RHEL5 server machine)
You can download that version here: http://www.swftools.org/swftools-2008-10-08-0802.tar.gz

Thanks Steve! I was able to get everything working with the same configuration on my Mac OS X server.

I'll now try the later Flash 9 player as well.

Perhaps the issue really was with something about the way my version of SWF Tools handled the pdfs?

Confirmed, it's working now

[nimbus58]

Just for info:

It works with:
Firefox 3
Flash 9,0,47,0
swftools 2008-10-27-2255

[tonytony]

I'm convinced that this is a Javascript issue and the FF js interpreter is not as forgiving as IE. I tried all different combinations of Flash and pdf2swf and I can't get the preview to work in FF 3.x while it works fine in IE 6 and 7 and SRWare Iron (a google chrome derivative). Loading the preview page shows 1 error and 1 warning both on FF (firebug) and IE.

[steve]

Hi tonytony,

Can you post the errors and warnings please?

Thanks,

Steve

[tonytony]

Steve: Give me a minute and I'll post the info, the problem is that you cant easily cut and paste from firebug and this forum doesn't allow posting screenshots.

Just to add to this discussion, I just tested minefield, the firefox alpha which has an advanced javascript interpreter, and the preview works fine.

firebug output

GET http://xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx:8080/share/proxy/alfresco//slin...e/(bunch-of-numbers-and-letters)?filter=nod... 295ms   utilities.js (line 15)
! Empty string passed to getElementById(). toolbar.js (line 888)
  ()  widgetPermissions = widget.get("value") .split(",");

Get http://xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx:8080/share/proxy/alfresco/api/n...(bunch-of-numbers-and-letters)/comments?sta... 81ms utilities.js (line15)
! Expected declaration but found '*'. Skipped to next declaration. javascript:top.location+"__flashplugin_unique__"‍‍‍‍‍‍

I installed the latest nightly build, and now IE does not show errors. (good job)

[ksapenov]

Hi guys,
My quick workaround was to change config settings in thumbnail-service-context.xml, so that swf tools generate version 10 content, instead of version 9 (set by default).

                        <!– Web Preview thumbnail options –>
                                <bean class="org.alfresco.repo.thumbnail.ThumbnailDefinition">
                                   <property name="name" value="webpreview" />
                                        <property name="mimetype" value="application/x-shockwave-flash"/>
                                        <property name="transformationOptions">
                                        <bean class="org.alfresco.repo.content.transform.swf.SWFTransformationOptions">
                                                <property name="flashVersion" value="10"/>
                                        </bean>
                                </property>
                        </bean>
‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍

Original post at http://ihatecubicle.blogspot.com/2009/01/alfresco-share-flash-preview.html

hope this helps,
Khazret Sapenov