The Warp - Breeze / Connect

Flash Developers needed in New York City

Mon, 13 Aug 2007 07:38:00 -0700

My friend Kryssy at R/GA in NYC is looking for Flash Developers of all levels for full-time onsite work.

Description as follows.

Scripting of Flash Interfaces and Applications in AS 2.0
Maintenance of ongoing projects

Programming Knowledge Requirements:

Full understanding of Object Orientated development and design with regards to AS2.0.
A proactive, quality orientated approach to development.
A love of clean and if possible reusable code.
Experience in working in medium to large sized teams in a structured and disciplined manner, e.g. test-driven development, version-control and deployment knowledge is very helpful.
Good working knowledge of OO Actionscript.

Soft skill we like:

Plays well with others i.e. able to interface with designers and usability designers.
Isn't afraid to raise there hand when something goes wrong and they need some help.
Curious about new technologies and eager to keep abreast of the ones they already know.

Why should consider applying:

Large supportive department of developers and a full QA team.
A CTO that will always talk to you and help you get to where you want to go.
Be amongst developers who are really into what they do and push the boundaries of development.

If interested email Krystyna.Bloch@rga.com with you resume and some code samples. Be sure to say that Jeff sent you.

Suggest session topics for Adobe MAX 2007

Wed, 28 Mar 2007 09:22:00 -0700

Time is almost running out if you want to submit a topic and/or suggest a presenter for MAX 2007. I have been wanting to present everything that I have been doing with Adobe/Breeze Presenter for some time. I still think there are a lot of people who don't know all the features that are available in Presenter. [More]

Breeze/Adobe Presenter XML Options...

Thu, 15 Mar 2007 08:13:00 -0700

I have heard from some readers that there are some options that were available in Breeze menus that are no longer available in Adobe Presenter. Take a look at your XML and see if you can modify it to get what you need. The below descriptions of what does what in the XML should help. I am assuming the options are still the same for the new Adobe Presenter as they were for the Breeze Presenter software. They are essentially the same applications. Here is a list of the XML options that are available in the "vconfig.xml" file that can be found in the "Data" folder of a published presentation. After that I will discuss a couple of the other XML files that contain important options to note. [More]

Including files automatically in Connect/Breeze Presenter...

Mon, 05 Mar 2007 10:12:00 -0700

Let say that there was a file or files that you needed to include in Presenter every time you published and you are getting tired of copying them over all the time manually. There is a simple solution that I have just found. All that you need to do is go to the directory where you have your PPT that you are going to convert and create a directory with the same name as the PPT. [More]

Adobe Presenter still falls short of the mark...

Mon, 29 Jan 2007 16:06:00 -0700

Adobe Presenter is basically the same application as the older Breeze Presenter application that was packaged as a part of Breeze. It has just been updated basically to say "Adobe" instead of "Macromedia". It still falls far short in the ability to customize many elements of the shell. It seems like Adobe would take the initiative and rework the product giving users the control over the presentation shell that they need to have. Instead, we are left a generic tool that you can't properly brand to your needs. Presenter is an extremely good tool for taking power point presentations and converting them into online flash presentations with audio and video. My gripe is with the "viewer.swf" that is published along with the files from powerpoint. Where is the source for it? Adobe will tell you there is no source for it. It is generated from the Presenter tool and is part of the presentation. What they don't tell you though is that the "viewer.swf" file is generic and isn't tied to any one presentation. What drives the "viewer.swf" are the supporting XML files and not the swf itself. What does this mean? This means that Adobe could release a "viewer.fla" to users so they can customize the shell for their company. This means you wouldn't be stuck with the generic loading screen and you could further customize the shell to fit your needs. There are ways that I talk about in my blog to "hack" some things together to rebrand parts of the shell to meet your needs, but there are a lot of things you can't change from the XML. Again, let me say that Presenter is a first rate app, but it has some serious shortcomings. The lack of control over the customization of the shell is rather shocking. For a tool that developers pay thousands of dollars for they should be releasing the entire source code and not hiding it. It is a shame for me to be so negative about a good tool, but it is also a shame that Adobe and Macromedia prior to them released such a restricted application.

Adobe unleashes Acrobat Connect...

Tue, 16 Jan 2007 10:57:00 -0700

Adobe has released the Connect products to the general public. For those new to the software, it was really just a reworking of the previous Macromedia product "Breeze". Connect will help you to bring an interactive environment to your sales and/or training sessions. "The feedback from users during our Acrobat Connect trial the past few months has been overwhelmingly positive. It has reinforced our belief that the product stands apart from traditional web conferencing solutions in terms of ease-of-use, elegance, and the instant access it provides anyone with an Adobe Flash enabled browser," said Tom Hale, senior vice president, Knowledge Worker Business Unit at Adobe. "Now that we're delivering the hosted service at an extremely approachable price, we expect knowledge workers to begin making Acrobat Connect personal meeting rooms as much a part of their daily work as email and the phone." Acrobat Connect is now available for a subscription price of US$39 per month, or US$395 per year per personal meeting room and there is also a professional version available. Also, it appears that they have renamed the "Breeze Presenter" to be the "Connect Presenter" to fall in line with the "Connect" name. Presenter allows users to convert ordinary PowerPoint presentations into interactive flash demos with sound and video. The good thing is that it seems from this link below that the licenses for the Connect Presenter may be easier to get separate from the Connect servers. Was it just me or was anyone else surprised to see this fall into the Acrobat line of products?

http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobatconnectpro/purchase/software/ - shows the different license options http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobatconnect/ - Adobe Connect homepage http://www.adobe.com/products/presenter/ - Adobe Presenter homepage

MC linkage names in Breeze...

Fri, 18 Aug 2006 22:05:00 -0700

Here's the list of classes that are defined and used in the actionscript for Breeze Presenter (the main package is called Poolpah2). They are listed by "symbolID","theClass". The symbolID is the linkage identifier of the movie clip symbol. Poolpah2.Linkage.ButtonColorCenter, Poolpah2.Controls.PrimaryColor
Poolpah2.Linkage.ButtonDimensionCenter, Poolpah2.Controls.ShadowColor
Poolpah2.Linkage.ButtonHalfGlowCenter, Poolpah2.Controls.GlowColor
Poolpah2.Linkage.ButtonColorLeft, Poolpah2.Controls.PrimaryColor
Poolpah2.Linkage.ButtonDimensionLeft, Poolpah2.Controls.ShadowColor
Poolpah2.Linkage.ButtonHalfGlowLeft, Poolpah2.Controls.GlowColor
Poolpah2.Linkage.ButtonColorRight, Poolpah2.Controls.PrimaryColor
Poolpah2.Linkage.ButtonDimensionRight, Poolpah2.Controls.ShadowColor
Poolpah2.Linkage.ButtonHalfGlowRight, Poolpah2.Controls.GlowColor
Poolpah2.Linkage.ButtonOver, Poolpah2.Controls.NineWaySizer
Poolpah2.Linkage.ButtonFullGlowCenter, Poolpah2.Controls.GlowColor
Poolpah2.Linkage.ButtonFullGlowLeft, Poolpah2.Controls.GlowColor
Poolpah2.Linkage.ButtonFullGlowRight, Poolpah2.Controls.GlowColor
Poolpah2.Linkage.ButtonDown, Poolpah2.Controls.NineWaySizer
Poolpah2.Linkage.ButtonDisabled, Poolpah2.Controls.NineWaySizer
Poolpah2.Linkage.ButtonUp, Poolpah2.Controls.NineWaySizer
Poolpah2.Linkage.FrameButton, Poolpah2.Controls.FrameButton
Poolpah2.Linkage.PrimaryRect, Poolpah2.Controls.PrimaryColor
Poolpah2.Linkage.Border, Poolpah2.Controls.Border
Poolpah2.Linkage.SBarArrowShading, Poolpah2.Controls.ShadowColor
Poolpah2.Linkage.SBarArrowIconDown, Poolpah2.Controls.TextColor
Poolpah2.Linkage.SBarArrowDown, Poolpah2.Controls.GlowColor
Poolpah2.Linkage.SBarArrowOver, Poolpah2.Controls.GlowColor
Poolpah2.Linkage.SBarButtonDn, Poolpah2.Controls.FrameButton
Poolpah2.Linkage.SBarArrowIconUp, Poolpah2.Controls.TextColor
Poolpah2.Linkage.SBarButtonUp, Poolpah2.Controls.FrameButton
Poolpah2.Linkage.SBarThumbColorMid, Poolpah2.Controls.PrimaryColor
Poolpah2.Linkage.SBarThumbShadingMid, Poolpah2.Controls.ShadowColor
Poolpah2.Linkage.SBarThumbColorTop, Poolpah2.Controls.PrimaryColor
Poolpah2.Linkage.SBarThumbShadingTop, Poolpah2.Controls.ShadowColor
Poolpah2.Linkage.SBarThumbGrips, Poolpah2.Controls.TextColor
Poolpah2.Linkage.SBarThumbDownMid, Poolpah2.Controls.GlowColor
Poolpah2.Linkage.SBarThumbDownTop, Poolpah2.Controls.GlowColor
Poolpah2.Linkage.SBarThumbDownBot, Poolpah2.Controls.GlowColor
Poolpah2.Linkage.ScrollThumbDown, Poolpah2.Controls.NineWaySizer
Poolpah2.Linkage.SBarThumbOverMid, Poolpah2.Controls.GlowColor
Poolpah2.Linkage.SBarThumbOverTop, Poolpah2.Controls.GlowColor
Poolpah2.Linkage.SBarThumbOverBot, Poolpah2.Controls.GlowColor
Poolpah2.Linkage.ScrollThumbOver, Poolpah2.Controls.NineWaySizer
Poolpah2.Linkage.ScrollThumb, Poolpah2.Controls.ScrollThumb
Poolpah2.Linkage.VScrollBar, Poolpah2.Controls.VScrollBar
Poolpah2.Linkage.PrimaryWinTitleBar, Poolpah2.Controls.PrimaryColor
Poolpah2.Linkage.ShadowWinTitleBar, Poolpah2.Controls.ShadowColor
Poolpah2.Linkage.Label, Poolpah2.Controls.Label
Poolpah2.Linkage.CloseButton, Poolpah2.Controls.FrameButton
Poolpah2.Linkage.TitleBarOutline, Poolpah2.Controls.StyleColor
Poolpah2.Linkage.Window, Poolpah2.Controls.Window
Poolpah2.Linkage.CurrentSlide, Poolpah2.Controls.TextColor
Poolpah2.Linkage.LightRect, Poolpah2.Controls.LightColor
Poolpah2.Linkage.TextArea, Poolpah2.Controls.TextArea
Poolpah2.Linkage.TextBgRect, Poolpah2.Controls.TextBgColor
Poolpah2.Linkage.BioTextArea, Poolpah2.UI.BioTextArea
Poolpah2.Linkage.NotesTextArea, Poolpah2.UI.NotesTextArea
Poolpah2.Linkage.ShadowLineRect, Poolpah2.UI.ShadowLineRect
Poolpah2.Linkage.CheckBox, Poolpah2.Controls.CheckBox
Poolpah2.Linkage.VolumeBar, Poolpah2.UI.GradBar
Poolpah2.Linkage.VolumeMenu, Poolpah2.UI.VolumeMenu
Poolpah2.Linkage.AttachList, Poolpah2.UI.AttachList
Poolpah2.Linkage.Loader, Poolpah2.Controls.Loader
Poolpah2.Linkage.TalkingHeadView, Poolpah2.Viewer.TalkingHeadView
Poolpah2.Linkage.OutlineList, Poolpah2.UI.OutlineList
Poolpah2.Linkage.LabelShading 10-to-0, Poolpah2.Controls.ShadowColor
Poolpah2.Linkage.LabelShading 10-to-5, Poolpah2.Controls.ShadowColor
Poolpah2.Linkage.VButtonColor, Poolpah2.Controls.PrimaryColor
Poolpah2.Linkage.IconSearch, Poolpah2.Controls.TextColor
Poolpah2.Linkage.VButtonFullGlow, Poolpah2.Controls.GlowColor
Poolpah2.Linkage.VButtonHalfGlow, Poolpah2.Controls.GlowColor
Poolpah2.Linkage.SearchButton, Poolpah2.Controls.FrameButton
Poolpah2.Linkage.SearchView, Poolpah2.Viewer.SearchView
Poolpah2.Linkage.ElapsedBar, Poolpah2.UI.ElapsedBar
Poolpah2.Linkage.OutlineView, Poolpah2.Viewer.OutlineView
Poolpah2.Linkage.NotesView, Poolpah2.Viewer.NotesView
Poolpah2.Linkage.ThumbList, Poolpah2.UI.ThumbList
Poolpah2.Linkage.ThumbView, Poolpah2.Viewer.ThumbView
Poolpah2.Linkage.AttachWinView, Poolpah2.UI.AttachWinView
Poolpah2.Linkage.ScrubBar, Poolpah2.UI.ScrubBar
Poolpah2.Linkage.Heartbeat, Poolpah2.Core.Heartbeat
Poolpah2.Linkage.ContentView, Poolpah2.Viewer.ContentView
Poolpah2.Linkage.BGRect, Poolpah2.Controls.BGColor
Poolpah2.Linkage.ButtonColor, Poolpah2.Controls.PrimaryColor
Poolpah2.Linkage.IconLayoutControls, Poolpah2.Controls.TextColor
Poolpah2.Linkage.ButtonFullGlow, Poolpah2.Controls.GlowColor
Poolpah2.Linkage.ButtonHalfGlow, Poolpah2.Controls.GlowColor
Poolpah2.Linkage.IconLayoutSlideOnly, Poolpah2.Controls.TextColor
Poolpah2.Linkage.ViewChangeButton, Poolpah2.Controls.FrameButton
Poolpah2.Linkage.IconVolume, Poolpah2.Controls.TextColor
Poolpah2.Linkage.IconVolumeMute, Poolpah2.Controls.TextColor
Poolpah2.Linkage.VolumeButton, Poolpah2.Controls.FrameButton
Poolpah2.Linkage.TabButton, Poolpah2.Controls.FrameButton
Poolpah2.Linkage.IconAttachment, Poolpah2.Controls.TextColor
Poolpah2.Linkage.AttachmentsButton, Poolpah2.Controls.FrameButton
Poolpah2.Linkage.RadioButton, Poolpah2.Controls.RadioButton
Poolpah2.Linkage.BreezeLogo, Poolpah2.Controls.TextColor
Poolpah2.Linkage.SlidePrevColor, Poolpah2.Controls.PrimaryColor
Poolpah2.Linkage.PlayButtonColor, Poolpah2.Controls.PrimaryColor
Poolpah2.Linkage.IconPlay, Poolpah2.Controls.TextColor
Poolpah2.Linkage.PlayButtonOverGlow, Poolpah2.Controls.GlowColor
Poolpah2.Linkage.PlayButtonDownGlow, Poolpah2.Controls.GlowColor
Poolpah2.Linkage.IconPause, Poolpah2.Controls.TextColor
Poolpah2.Linkage.PlayButton, Poolpah2.Controls.FrameButton
Poolpah2.Linkage.IconSlideNext, Poolpah2.Controls.TextColor
Poolpah2.Linkage.SlideNextHalfGlow, Poolpah2.Controls.GlowColor
Poolpah2.Linkage.SlideNextFullGlow, Poolpah2.Controls.GlowColor
Poolpah2.Linkage.SlideNextButton, Poolpah2.Controls.FrameButton
Poolpah2.Linkage.IconSlidePrev, Poolpah2.Controls.TextColor
Poolpah2.Linkage.SlidePrevHalfGlow, Poolpah2.Controls.GlowColor
Poolpah2.Linkage.SlidePrevFullGlow, Poolpah2.Controls.GlowColor
Poolpah2.Linkage.SlidePrevButton, Poolpah2.Controls.FrameButton
Poolpah2.Linkage.ControlBar, Poolpah2.Viewer.ControlBar
Poolpah2.Linkage.MiniControlBar, Poolpah2.Viewer.ControlBar
Poolpah2.Linkage.SidebarShading, Poolpah2.Controls.ShadowColor
Poolpah2.Linkage.SidebarView, Poolpah2.Viewer.SidebarView
Poolpah2.Linkage.IndicatorShadow, Poolpah2.Controls.ShadowColor
Poolpah2.Linkage.IndicatorPtr, Poolpah2.Controls.TextColor
Poolpah2.Linkage.ShadowRect20, Poolpah2.Controls.ShadowColor
Poolpah2.Linkage.ShadowRect21, Poolpah2.Controls.GlowColor
Poolpah2.Linkage.UIObject, Poolpah2.Controls.UIObject
Poolpah2.Linkage.Button, Poolpah2.Controls.Button
Poolpah2.Linkage.ComboBox, Poolpah2.Controls.ComboBox
Poolpah2.Linkage.List, Poolpah2.Controls.List
Poolpah2.Linkage.TextInput, Poolpah2.Controls.TextInput
Poolpah2.Linkage.Modal, Poolpah2.Controls.SkinElement
Poolpah2.Linkage.FocusManager, Poolpah2.Controls.FocusManager
Poolpah2.Linkage.UIComponent, Poolpah2.Controls.UIComponent
Poolpah2.Linkage.CheckTrueDisabled, Poolpah2.Controls.SkinElement
Poolpah2.Linkage.CheckThemeColor1, Poolpah2.Controls.GlowColor
Poolpah2.Linkage.CheckTrueDown, Poolpah2.Controls.SkinElement
Poolpah2.Linkage.CheckTrueOver, Poolpah2.Controls.SkinElement
Poolpah2.Linkage.CheckTrueUp, Poolpah2.Controls.SkinElement
Poolpah2.Linkage.CheckFalseDisabled, Poolpah2.Controls.SkinElement
Poolpah2.Linkage.CheckFalseDown, Poolpah2.Controls.SkinElement
Poolpah2.Linkage.CheckFalseOver, Poolpah2.Controls.SkinElement
Poolpah2.Linkage.CheckFalseUp, Poolpah2.Controls.SkinElement
Poolpah2.Linkage.RadioFalseDisabled, Poolpah2.Controls.SkinElement
Poolpah2.Linkage.RadioThemeColor1, Poolpah2.Controls.GlowColor
Poolpah2.Linkage.RadioThemeColor2, Poolpah2.Controls.GlowColor
Poolpah2.Linkage.RadioFalseDown, Poolpah2.Controls.SkinElement
Poolpah2.Linkage.RadioFalseOver, Poolpah2.Controls.SkinElement
Poolpah2.Linkage.RadioFalseUp, Poolpah2.Controls.SkinElement
Poolpah2.Linkage.RadioTrueDisabled, Poolpah2.Controls.SkinElement
Poolpah2.Linkage.RadioTrueDown, Poolpah2.Controls.SkinElement
Poolpah2.Linkage.RadioTrueOver, Poolpah2.Controls.SkinElement
Poolpah2.Linkage.RadioTrueUp, Poolpah2.Controls.SkinElement
Poolpah2.Linkage.xd_CheckDimension, Poolpah2.Controls.ShadowColor
Poolpah2.Linkage.xd_CheckFullGlow, Poolpah2.Controls.GlowColor
Poolpah2.Linkage.xd_CheckHalfGlow, Poolpah2.Controls.GlowColor
Poolpah2.Linkage.xd_CheckSelected, Poolpah2.Controls.ShadowColor
Poolpah2.Linkage.CBButton, Poolpah2.Controls.FrameButton
Poolpah2.Linkage.ViewerController, Poolpah2.Viewer.ViewerController

Latest version of Breeze Presenter and Audio Files in Presenter...

Mon, 31 Jul 2006 07:46:00 -0700

Well this post is probably a little late, but here goes anyway. We finally got our upgrade of Breeze Presenter the other day and from the most part I like what I see. They not only improved the look of the preloader that you see before the presentation starts, but now all the files show up as MP3's and not "BPA" files. Although, if you were to change BPA to MP3 you could play them in Media Player. Now I do feel more confident about bringing in my own audio and putting it into MP3 format and putting it in the "data" folder. The reason why you might want to do this instead of importing the audio through the Breeze menu in PowerPoint is that you have much much more control over the compression. The menu that they give you in PowerPoint is very basic and only gives you a Low, Medium, and High audio settings. So if you are like our client and you want to have high quality audio on your breeze presentation you don't have to rely on the compression setting in Breeze. You can take your compression setting just about as high as you want to go. Of course you will still have to remember to name your new MP3 files properly using the format "a24x1.mp3", "a24x2.mp3", "a24x3.mp3", etc. The number after the "x" is the slide number. I haven't seen all that many drawbacks to this technique. Let me know how all of this works for you. I am going to try and post more about customizing Breeze Presenter. If you want to customize Breeze Presenter more, be sure to check out my other posts on the subject: Macromedia Breeze Presenter (part 1)
Macromedia Breeze Presnter (part 2)

Macromedia Breeze Presenter (Part 2)

Tue, 01 Nov 2005 12:54:00 -0700

I have received various comments about my last article and since there is a huge lack of information on this subject online I have decided to add to my last article about Macromedia Breeze Presenter. This article is continued from: Breeze Presenter (part 1) There was a question as to how to replace the Macromedia logo that exists in the bottom left or right depending on the view you use. This is accomplished by modifying the XML. There are a few steps we need to go through first to do this. I am assuming here that you have already published your presentation. If you have not, you should publish it now. Publish Locally for our purposes here. Creating your logo Now what I did was to create a logo file that was roughly the same size as the space. I used Flash to create my logo and I used the dimensions 113x44. You should try and use a logo that doesn't have a background so that you will pick up the colors of the Breeze Navigation bar under it. After you have created your logo in Flash you need to make it a part of your presentation package. The easiest way to do this is to put it in the "data/resources" folder in your published presentation. This is the same folder that is used if any documents are attached to your Breeze presentation. XML Modification When finished putting your logo file in the "data/resources" folder of your breeze presentation you need to modify the XML. You do this with a line of XML that is found in "vconfig.xml" file. This file is a part of every theme that either comes with Breeze Presenter or is one that you create. For example you should edit the XML in a file you just published:

data/vconfig.xml

Find this line in your "vconfig.xml":

This is the line that we are going to change. Inside the quotation marks for "value", you should reference your newly created logo. For example purposes I am going to call this "logo.swf". For "value" you should put the path to our logo file. You will end up with an entry like this:

Now open your presentation and you should be looking at your shiney new logo where the Macromedia logo used to be. Other Options Another option would be to create your own theme and modify the "vconfig.xml" file that is part of that new theme. Then you would have to put your "logo.swf" file into the "data/resources" folder after you publish. The XML file in the Theme and the XML file that gets published are almost identical. Thus you can create your own theme that can be used over and over again. I will continue to comment on different aspects of my customization efforts as my time allows. If you have a question, enter it as a comment below and I will probably base a blog entry off of it.

Macromedia Breeze Presenter (Part 1)

Thu, 06 Oct 2005 12:03:00 -0700

The purpose of this article is to post my findings about Macromedia Breeze, specifically the Breeze Presenter. For those that do not know what Presenter is, Breeze Presenter basically converts PowerPoint presentations into Flash presentations. These presentations are generated through a PowerPoint Plugin. Through this plugin you can add voice over to slides, you can put swf's in place of slides and you can add flash video. When we first started to explore Macromedia Breeze we were under the impression that we had to use the Breeze server in order to use Breeze Presenter. This can't be further from the truth. In fact Macromedia won't really tell you this on their site. We have found that it runs just fine outside of the Breeze server. The only thing we loose is the tracking and some of the poll options. But in my opinion those are small options and a huge cost savings. We have found that Breeze Presenter is very limited in its customization options. But we found some ways around that. There was no source provided for any of the swf files that the Breeze Presenter publishes from breeze, so we had to look at other ways to customize it. Themes and XML We did noticed there were Themes included with Breeze that allowed you to give your presentation a different look and feel, but there was no way through the plugin to adjust many of the options available. What we did was to create our own Theme based off an existing Theme. Let's explore one of the pre-installed themes: C:\Program Files\Macromedia\Breeze 5\Themes\Club Orange If you have breeze presenter installed you will see a sub folder called "data". In this folder is an XML file called "vconfig.xml" which contains:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<configuration>
   <colors>
      <uicolor name="primary" value="0xE9A21A"/>
      <uicolor name="glow" value="0x35D334"/>
      <uicolor name="text" value="0xFFFFFF"/>
      <uicolor name="light" value="0xA57312"/>
      <uicolor name="shadow" value="0x000000"/>
<uicolor name="background" value="0xC58C1F"/>
   </colors>
<layout>
<uishow name="presentationtitle" value="true"/>
<uishow name="presenterphoto" value="true"/>
<uishow name="presentername" value="true"/>
<uishow name="presentertitle" value="true"/>
<uishow name="presenteremail" value="true"/>
<uishow name="presenterbio" value="true"/>
<uishow name="companylogo" value="true"/>
<uishow name="sidebar" value="true"/>
<uishow name="outline" value="true"/>
<uishow name="thumbnail" value="true"/>
<uishow name="notes" value="true"/>
<uishow name="search" value="true"/>
<uishow name="attachments" value="true"/>
<uishow name="utils" value="true"/>
<uishow name="volume" value="true"/>
<uishow name="playbar" value="true"/>
<uishow name="talkinghead" value="true"/>
<uishow name="sidebaronright" value="true"/>
<uishow name="viewchange" value="true"/>
<uishow name="initialdisplaymodeisnormal" value="true"/>
<uireplace name="logo" value=""/>
<uireplace name="bgimage" value=""/>
<uireplace name="initialtab" value="outline"/>
</layout>

</configuration>

The above, as you can see, gives you a lot more options than what is available through the Theme Editor. You can even go as far as swap out the Macromedia logo at the bottom of the Breeze presentation with the line:

There is also another XML file that is crucial and is located here: C:\Program Files\Macromedia\Breeze 5\Themes\language.xml Here is an excerpt from it:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>

<configuration>
   <language id="en">
      
      <uifont name="FONT_QUIZZING" value="Verdana,9,false,false,false"/>
      <uifont name="FONT_SCRUBSTATUS" value="Verdana,9,true,false,false"/>
      <uifont name="FONT_SCRUBTIME" value="Verdana,9,false,false,false"/>
      <uifont name="FONT_ELAPSEDTIME" value="Verdana,9,true,false,false"/>
      <uifont name="FONT_UTILSMENU" value="Verdana,9,true,false,false"/>
      <uifont name="FONT_TABS" value="Verdana,9,true,false,false"/>
      <uifont name="FONT_PRESENTATIONNAME" value="Verdana,15,false,false,false"/>
      <uifont name="FONT_PRESENTERNAME" value="Verdana,15,false,false,false"/>
      <uifont name="FONT_PRESENTERTITLE" value="Verdana,11,true,false,false"/>
      <uifont name="FONT_BIOBTN" value="Verdana,9,false,false,false"/>
      <uifont name="FONT_NOTES" value="Verdana,11,false,false,false"/>
      <uifont name="FONT_OUTLINE" value="Verdana,11,false,false,false"/>
      <uifont name="FONT_SEARCH" value="Verdana,11,false,false,false"/>
      <uifont name="FONT_THUMB" value="Verdana,9,false,false,false"/>
      <uifont name="FONT_BIOWIN" value="Verdana,11,false,false,false"/>
      <uifont name="FONT_LISTHEADING" value="Verdana,9,false,false,false"/>
      <uifont name="FONT_WINTITLE" value="Verdana,9,false,false,false"/>
      <uifont name="FONT_ATTACHMENTS" value="Verdana,11,false,false,false"/>
      
      
      <uitext name="UNNAMEDSLIDETITLE" value="Slide %n"/>
      
      
      <uitext name="SCRUBBARSTATUS_SLIDEINFO" value="Slide %n / %t | "/>
      <uitext name="SCRUBBARSTATUS_STOPPED" value="Stopped"/>
      <uitext name="SCRUBBARSTATUS_PLAYING" value="Playing"/>
      <uitext name="SCRUBBARSTATUS_NOAUDIO" value="No Audio"/>
<uitext name="SCRUBBARSTATUS_LOADING" value="Loading"/>
<uitext name="SCRUBBARSTATUS_BUFFERING" value="Buffering"/>
      <uitext name="SCRUBBARSTATUS_QUESTION" value="Answer Question"/>
      <uitext name="SCRUBBARSTATUS_REVIEWQUIZ" value="Reviewing Quiz"/>
      
      
      <uitext name="ELAPSED" value="%m Minutes %s Seconds Remaining"/>
      <uitext name="NOTFOUND" value="Nothing Found"/>
      <uitext name="ATTACHMENTS" value="Attachments"/>
      
      <uitext name="BIOWIN_TITLE" value="Bio: %p"/>
      <uitext name="BIOBTN_TITLE" value="Bio"/>
      <uitext name="DIVIDERBTN_TITLE" value="|"/>
      <uitext name="CONTACTBTN_TITLE" value="Contact"/>
      <uitext name="TAB_OUTLINE" value="Outline"/>
      <uitext name="TAB_THUMB" value="Thumb"/>
      <uitext name="TAB_NOTES" value="Transcript"/>
      <uitext name="TAB_SEARCH" value="Search"/>
      <uitext name="SLIDE_HEADING" value="Slide Title"/>
      <uitext name="DURATION_HEADING" value="Duration"/>
      <uitext name="SEARCH_HEADING" value="Search for text in Transcript:"/>
      <uitext name="THUMB_HEADING" value="Slide"/>
      <uitext name="THUMB_INFO" value="Slide Title/Duration"/>
      <uitext name="ATTACHNAME_HEADING" value="File Name"/>
      <uitext name="ATTACHSIZE_HEADING" value="Size"/>
      <uitext name="SLIDE_NOTES" value="Slide Notes"/>
      
      
      
      <uitext name="BOOKMARK" value="Macromedia Breeze - %p"/>
      
      
      
      <uitext name="BOOKMARKSLIDE" value="Macromedia Breeze - %p %s"/>
      <uitext name="SHOWSIDEBAR" value="Show sidebar to participants"/>
   </language>

I am only putting part of it here, because in that file it has the menu text for all of the other languages. But you can see from the above that you can actually get rid of that horrid text shadow in your Breeze presentations.


<uifont name="FONT_QUIZZING" value="Verdana,9,false,false,false"/>

This came in handy with our site we were doing since we needed to make the presenter white and the text black. Which if you try to do this through the Theme Editor it won't allow you. I think it won't allow you because there is no way to get rid of the Shadow without altering the XML. Other useful findings We found that you can use a "loadMovie" command and pull the "viewer.swf" that is generated from PPT into a shell. We also found that in Breeze there is no way to turn off the background of the Breeze. You can change the color of the background, but you can't remove it or set it's alpha to 0. We got around this by loading breeze into a shell and setting up an actionscript mask that hid the background. You have to use an actionscript mask and not a layer mask. Using a layer mask causes all of the text to disapper. In Summary We found out quickly that Macromedia doesn't support any of what we were trying to do. So we had to go it blind. We were creating a seemless user experience for our clients. One in which they could present Breeze Presentations to online customers without them ever having to leave their site or the flash shell. In the flash shell we gave them options to present other breeze presentations as well as other documents. We basically created a virtual center where the customers could come in, listen to presentations and download supporting documentation in the same flash movie. It is a shame they don't provide the source for the flash files that get generated, if they did this product would be the greatest thing since sliced bread.

Macromedia Breeze

Mon, 15 Aug 2005 11:29:00 -0700

Why is it that when Macromedia creates a product like breeze they don't release the source FLA that holds the presentation? They didn't make it very customizeable at all from a developers perspective. It has been a real pain to develop with it. What I need is access to the source FLA for it. The main problems I have had were from trying to load the breeze presentation into a shell that will ultimately have many more breeze presentations available in it. We didn't want to popup a new window, we wanted to keep the user inside the main flash shell. This causes a problem because you can't turn the background off, you can't turn the font shadows off and much more. My main question/comment is that, How can macromedia ever seriously expect this to become a major development tool? As it stands now I don't think it is. I agree, the conversion of PPT to SWF is great, but the shell leaves a lot to be said.