Make flash plugin from a png

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This is a guide to creating a Family tree that can be viewed in a web-browser in a convenient way by allowing zooming in and out and navigating the image of the tree.

How ?

Installation of necessary tools

  1. Install swftools: [1]
  2. use the Graphviz plugin to generate a graphical report (see Howto: Make a relationship chart)

Generation of Flash file

Flash is a proprietary format, of which however open implementations exist. You have to install a flash player and a browser plugin, to be able to view a flash file in firefox, konqueror, ...

You can create the flash file as follows:

  1. If the report image is called "report.png", execute "png2swf -o report.swf report.png" on the command line.
  2. There should now be a file report.swf, that can be opened in any browser with a flash-plugin. You can zoom by right-clicking in the image and choosing zoom in from the menu, and you can navigate by "dragging the image" inside the window with your mouse.

I did this with the result of Example 2 on Howto: Make a relationship chart, and the resulting file may be available here soon. I named it ancestorsAndDescedants.swf.

Enhancements

  • It is also possible to use javascript to add zooming by moving the mouse wheel, but he who did it does not remember how at the moment.
  • The .dot file generated in example 3 on Howto: Make a relationship chart seems to contain the web-page addresses to the personal pages of the "Narrative Webpage" report pages, and it would be nice to have links from inside the flash-application to the personal homepages. I do not know if this is possible.