FlashPanos

Please see the forums, which are now live!

http://flashpanos.com/forum

Anyone can discuss, learn, and share information regarding the current crop of Flash based panorama viewers (Flash Panorama Player, krpano, Pano2VR, Papervision 3D, PanoSalado, Lucid Viewer).

OK!

So, you want to make a Flash container with all your own graphics and buttons and load your Flash Panorama Player presentation into it? Here you go... a quick "embed pano 101".

What you'll end up with is a "skinned" player which displays your FPP panorama with an irregular outline (not a rectangle!) -- including buttons to load panoramas, buttons to pan/tilt/zoom, and a button to "go fullscreen".

Topping it all off you'll be able to go fullscreen and leave some of your buttons & graphics behind, then leave fullscreen and get your buttons back. This allows you to display what you want when you want it. The FPP XML in this example will show some thumbnails in fullscreen, which display larger photos.

As a bonus in this example, we will load lower resolution panoramas into the player when not in fullscreen; then, when going fullscreen, we will load higher resolution panoramas. Once loaded, these higher resolution panoramas will stay in the cache and be seen in fullscreen and not fullscreen. So, there's a lot packed into this 'little' example!

By popular demand, a plugin which lets you create a custom context menu (right click menu) for your FPP presentation! Insert as many menu items and links as you want (up to Adobe's limit of 15). And, it's free to download and use!

06/24/2008 update:

This is a continuation -- the latest release! -- of our Open Source Saga, whereby we are creating a set of libraries sat atop Papervision 3D... all with the intention of making it possible and desirable for the community at large to co-develop a Flash-based Panorama Viewer.

[UPDATE]
PanoSalado now has its very own blog. For the latest news, source files and examples head on over to the PanoSalado Blog. You can also directly subscribe to the blog feed and never be without your PanoSalado.
[END UPDATE]

This is the first part of a multi part series of tutorials written by Zephyr Renner and Patrick Cheatham that will look at some of the advanced functionality a user can produce by getting beyond what can be accomplished with Flash Panorama Player's XML configuration files, and getting into programming Actionscript (AS3).

There are a number of ways to create Actionscript based interaction with FPP, and primary amongst them is with a plugin, so that is where we are going to start.

Submitted by FlashPanos fan and FPP user doubledrop.

This exercise has been written to help other novice users of FPP like myself, and who are struggling with the full screen function.

This is an example of creating an auto-presentation for your panorama. Contributed by Patrick Cheatham.

Using a short series of custom functions in your XML file, Flash Panorama Player can move your panorama through a series of pan, tilt and zoom movements.

This example also shows how to write and name your custom functions, keeping them grouped together in your global element. This way you always know where your functions are and how to target them.

Fellow FPP enthusiast Chen Luo has created a handful of cool Lens Flare plugins ("smart hotspots") for everyone to use. Included are example SWFs, XML files, and the source FLA files.

Simply place your favorite Lens Flare SWF as a <spot/> in your FPP XML file, give it a pan and tilt placement, and away you go!

Example usage:

The latest news, source and examples are at the PanoSalado Blog.

We still love using Flash Panorama Player -- who doesn't? -- but we're also tinkerers... The growing prevalence of 360° panoramas being delivered on news media Web sites and a few other places have surprised us by being (for the most part) sat atop of the Papervision 3D engine.

ia_video plays linear media files (.flv and .swf) under XML control in FPP. Its main use is for playing transition movies between pans. Contributed by FPP forum user Rick Workman. Version 1.0, free.