CoffeeCup Firestarter is unusual as a low cost Flash development tool. In a previous article, I reviewed it favorably but pointed out it has a number of quirks, which can mostly be dealt with prior knowledge or simple workarounds. This is the subject of this article. During extensive use of Firestarter, I have experienced the following issues:
1. Truncated soundtracks
2. Backwards compatibility and lost links
3. Standards compliance (or a lack of it!)
Firestarter allows you to add an audio soundtrack to your movie. I was discomforted to discover that it seemed to be truncating my movie soundtracks. I discovered that it was necessary to add an object which would still be active after the sound track had finished in order to ensure the soundtrack played in its entirety.
The answer is to create a square graphical object first, which will then be hidden by subsequent objects. It is a good idea to make it the same color as the background and then it is camouflaged. Add blanks to its timeline so it should only appear after the soundtrack has finished. Now the soundtrack will play in its entirety.
I did a lot work in version 6 of Firestarter. The new version (7.2; we will draw a veil over the 7.1 release) still has difficulty opening my old v6 files. Take care in upgrading to the new version if you have a big investment in a particular version. Also never move your image and other component files, since Firestarter will look for them to build up your project from scratch, and you will have to identify them manually if their location has changed. This means that it can be difficult to edit movies away from the original PC that was used to develop them.
The final issue is generic to Flash movies, not just Firestarter, but Firestarter is complicit because it suggests that you use non-compliant code.
<OBJECT classid="clsid:D27CDB6E-AE6D-11cf-96B8-444553540000"
codebase="http://active.macromedia.com/flash2/cabs/swflash.cab#version=4,0,0,0" ID=test WIDTH=800 HEIGHT=420>
<PARAM NAME=movie VALUE="test.swf">
<PARAM NAME=quality VALUE=high>
<PARAM NAME=loop VALUE=false>
<EMBED src="test.swf" loop=false quality=high
WIDTH=800 HEIGHT=420 TYPE="application/x-shockwave-flash"
PLUGINSPAGE="http://www.macromedia.com/shockwave/download/index.cgi?P1_Prod_Version=ShockwaveFlash">
</EMBED>
</OBJECT>
If you use the recommended HTML in a standard HTML 4.01 page template, you will generate 10 compliance errors in the space of 9 lines.
A more compliant coding solution would be:
<object data="movie.swf" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="500" height="500">
<param name="movie" value="movie.swf" />
</object>
The usability and functionality of Firestarter at its price point, make me more indulgent of its foibles than I might be otherwise, but the tips here will eliminate most of the frustrations in use.
