I have just got my flash file working, but now theres a new problem, my div is only 500px wide and the flash is 800px wide and it won't scale down it just cuts off the what ever doesn't fit in the div,,, i tried changing the width and the height of the object and embed to scale it down but it doesnt scale down the buttons in the flash menu only makes the window smaller and still cuts off what ever is left.... this is what it looks like.. see image attatchment.


How do i get it to scale down to fit?

From what I remember when I created my flash items, I determined how much space on my page i had to work with, then I put those dimensions into the Flash object itself when I began to build it.

You can specifiy height and width dimensions at design time (at least in Firestarter), but I dont think it scales after that. It just is whatever size you build it to be.

I'm new to a lot of these tools, so I'd be interested to know if there is another answer.

Nevermind my comment above... I see you mean the Flash menu, not Firestarter. I too have had some issues with the menu, and it appears to be related to the size of the buttons themselves.

I created some of my own buttons at different sizes, and the menu builder seems to be sensitive to their dimensions. Remember that you have two levels of buttons. My guess is that it takes the dimensions of the larger of the buttons, and creates the space based on that.. but I havent experimented quite enough yet to know exactly how it works.

You are correct Scott, the menu builder does not scale the size of the buttons. If you need smaller menu, use smaller buttons. You can create your own if you have software for it or just google 'buttons' and see what you can get off the web. There are many free buttons available for download.

From what little I understand of the Flash format, it's fairly strict about adhering to the pre-determined size of the final display once an object is created. It's one of the reasons Flash content isn't yet compatible with most portables, such as Blackberrys, with small screens.

Spinny, if just the .swf file is uploaded, without the control of html flash code, that file should play in most browsers and will size itself to the screen. The downside is that it will fill the screen, look blurry if the screen is larger than the files used and can look bad on a web page.
For those creating flash for small screens (that support flash) it's the way to go.

Cool. So if, for example, I wanted to make Flash content for a Blackberry-friendly page, I'd just offer a link to the .swf file, with no imbedded HTML to control it, and that content would then take over the screen?

Providing blackberry can handle it like a web browser. Unfortunately, it could trigger a download of the .swf file it it can't display it.....browsers do that too if for any reason they can't display the content, same as a MS Word file would trigger a download rather than display it's content.
There may also be a maximum size, so your flash may not fill a 24 inch monitor usless it's built that big.
Try this link to the blog on my site (outdated, I know). It links directly to the .swf file. Now reduce or expand the web browser window and see how it behaves
http://www.mainsites.ca/mainsitesblog.swf

Thanks, I'll have to make time at some point to experiment. Since I do almost all of my web browsing (when I'm not at my day job, like now) on my Blackberry, and it's been something of a truism that Flash won't work on one, I'm curious what the facts really are. The down side is the version of the BB Browser my machine uses is notoriously bad at rendering stuff not coded to a certain "standard." This site is mostly a jumbled mess on my BB, but you can scroll past it to the posted content and read that so it still works out okay. There's a mobile version of Opera that mitigates some of the jumbling but it has other issues so I don't use it.

Just the ramblings of a Crackberry addict,

Spinny, I edited my post above, and stuck in a link to an online .swf file for you to see if it scales for you. It works here on IE and FF