Want to know how to play SWF’s locally on the PlayBook?

 

Playing SWFs Locally or after Downloading Them to your PlayBook (including adding an icon!)

Difficulty:  Pretty easy

Step 1 – Install a Local Web Browser from the App Store.  In this case, Offline Viewer.

Link:  http://appworld.blackberry.com/webstore/content/36273?lang=en

Note:  This will let you browse only your root /media/downloads folder for viewing, however you can link to any subfolder

Step 2 – Download a wack of SWF files.  Need a torrent?

http://thepiratebay.org/search/flash%20games < – Grab ‘very addicting flash games’ torrent

http://isohunt.com/torrents/?ihq=flash+games

Step 3 – Place them into a subfolder (i.e. downloads/flash_games/)

Step 4 – Add a root index.html under (downloads/) with hyperlinks to the files

Step 5 – Use the Viewer to open the file into your browser

Step 6 – Create a bookmark in your browser, save it to your Home (all)

Step 7 – Hold the icon a few seconds in the All tab and move it to the Games tab

Done!

Tip:  Want to know how to create a list fast and easy?  Use your old dos / batch file tools.

Easily converting a list of files to an HTML file for linking:

Lets assume you want to have:

index.html
folder\1.swf
folder\2.swf

In the same folder as the index.html, create a BAT with the following command:

dir *.swf /a/s/b > list.txt

Run the bat in the root (not as administrator), and a print out of all the files appears named list.txt.

Now, you can use Notepad to open the file and replace the string (i.e. “C:\Documents and Settings\%username%\Desktop\” to an empty string “”).  This is because, once you move your files over, they will have a different path!  It is always better (in these cases) to use a flexible location like:  \folder\1.swf for a link location.

Now, in Excel, copy/paste that list into Column B.  You should have a long list in the \folder\1.swf format.

In Column A add:  <a href=”

In Column C add: “> Click to play: </a>

In Column D add: “=B1”

In Column E add: “=A1 & B1 & C1 & D1 & E1

Copy paste Column A from the start row to the bottom row.

Copy paste Columns C to E from the start row to the bottom row.

Done!  Copy paste your entire Column E to another Notepad file – and it should look exactly like your HTML code.

Add to the top: 
<html>
<head>
<title>Your Title</title>
</head>
</body background="optional_image.jpg">
Add to the bottom:
</body>
</html>

And your done! Could be done easier? Sure, but this only takes a few minutes.  And now you have a little website with a few hundred SWF files on it.

Also, there is a reason I hard-link the SWF instead of embed.  Check it out on your Playbook, but it maximizes the heck out of the SWF file for your PlayBook.

Cheers,

Lloyd