Personalise
your emails by adding a SWiSH movie to them. This example shows
how to incorporate a SWiSH movie into your email by using Stationary
in Microsoft Outlook Express, but other email software will
use similar methods.
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| Step One
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First
you need to create a movie in SWiSH and export it via the File
-> Export -> SWF menu options. This will create a smaller,
compressed movie able to be read by any email software which
supports emails in HTML format.
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| Step Two
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Upload
your swf file to the internet. There is a tutorial for doing
this here.
Note that you only need to upload the swf file - you do not
have to export and upload any html code.
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| Step Three
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Now we
get on to the clever bit. Modern email software can read emails
in HTML format. This means that whatever you can view on the
internet can be viewed in an email - you simply write it in
HTML. Don't worry, you don't have to learn HTML - you can download
an example file here.
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| Step Four
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Let's
take a quick look at the HTML file you just downloaded. Open
the file in Notepad or a similar simple text editor. Note the
code between the the <object> and </object> tags.
This is the bit that tells the email to display your SWiSH movie.
I have linked this to a .swf file on our own website - you will
want to link it to the .swf you uploaded in Step Two. Do this
now.
Note that the reference to the .swf file is actually made in
two places, you must change them both.
Note also that width and height settings can be made for each
reference. If you would prefer for your movie to be displayed
at its regular size, just delete the 'width=' and 'height='
values from the HTML.
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| Step Five
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I have
also added a bit of text at the bottom, in this case mentioning
SWiSH. You may want to change this to your own job description,
or a personal message. If you don't want anything added, just
remove the text from the HTML.
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| Step Six
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So now
you have your SWiSH movie and the code to display it. Next we
have to link the HTML code to your outgoing emails. In Outlook
Express, this can be done via the Tools -> Options -> Compose
menu options. Go to the Stationary option, check the
'Mail' checkbox and then browse to the html file you just downloaded.
The important thing to note here, is that you are adding 'Stationary'
to your email. Other email software such as Eudora have this
capability, but they may have different menu options to implement
it. You should not have to change the HTML code in any way,
just consult the appropriate help documentation to find how
to add Stationary to your email software.
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| Step Seven
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And that's
all there is to it. Send an email to yourself to see how it
looks, and go back and edit the HTML as you see fit. If it does
not seem to be working, there may be a few settings you need
to change...
the movie is interpreted by most software as an 'Active
X Document' and as such is blocked by higher than normal security
settings. If you send an email to somebody, and they have
high security settings, they will be prompted with a warning,
and the movie will not be displayed. There is nothing you
can do about this - it is up to them to change their security
settings
make sure that the .swf reference in the HTML code is pointing
to your .swf file on the internet. The best way to do this
is to browse to it directly in a web browser, then copy/paste
the url from the browser into the HTML. And remember to change
both instances of the reference in the HTML
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