How to import a Flash animation into AOL's Easy Designer / FTP SPACE

AOL Easy Designer (ED) is a free HTML editor for people who host their website at AOL. The following tutorial will explain how to add the Flash animations to your website and how to upload the files with AOL's own FTP application , FTP SPACE.

How to create the effect in Anim-FX:
1) Select any of the 55 template effects.
2) Enter your text of up to 5 lines. If you fill in less than 5 lines the program will only render the entered lines and ignore the empty ones.
3) Set the size and starting position of your text. Should you decide to make the animation smaller than the default settings by setting a percentage of the width or height tag in HTML, cropping will automatically occur from the outer edges.
Select the background color and text color. You can use any hexadecimal value. For example, FFFFFF is white, OOOOOO is black, 333333 is dark gray, FF0000 is red, 00FF00 is green, 0000FF is blue, etc.
4) To preview the effect in your browser, click on the Preview button.

How to save the effect:
5) All the saved templates are stored in the Anim-FX directory. Normally this directory will be at C://Program Files/Anim-FX. Every effect consists of 2 files, an .SWF file and a .TXT file (e.g. "explosion.swf" and "explosion.txt"). They are both needed for the effect to work properly, because the text file contains all the data for the SWF file.

6) To save your Anim-FX effect, click Save Settings and click the Save text file button. the files will be automatically saved to the directory where you installed the software. Now click on HTML Code. On the HTML page, set the width and height of the Flash Intro. and for scale, click on No Border. Then click on Generate HTML. Once it's highlighted, right click on the data with your mouse and click on Copy.

7) Create a new Notepad document with your computer and click on paste within it. Then highlight all the data and press Control C to copy the data code. This will allow you to paste the HTML code within your Easy Designer page later with Control V, once you have clicked on the Insert Advanced HTML option on your Easy Designer page.

Adding the effect to an Easy Designer page:
8) You should now copy the .swf and .txt files to the directory which holds the HTML page where you want the effect to appear. To do this, go to AOL's Keyword: FTP SPACE. Then click on SEE MY FTP SPACE. Click on UPLOAD and then BINARY (PROGRAMS & GRAPHICS). Type the Remote Filename for the .swf file exactly as ANIM-FX created it (all in lower case) Ex.: triplechar.swf Now click on CONTINUE. Click on SELECT FILE. At this point you need to locate the file on your computer. The file will be found where you have your Anim-FX folder, which is frequently found at C://Program Files/Anim-FX. Once you have found and double clicked on the appropriate .swf file, click SEND. Allow it to upload and click on O.K. once the file transfer is complete. To upload your .txt file, click on ASCII (Text documents) and type the Remote Filename for the .txt file exactly as Anim-FX created it (all in lower case) Ex.: triplechar.txt Then click on CONTINUE. Click on SELECT FILE and locate & double click on the appropriate .txt file. Then click on SEND just as you did with the .swf file. It will be located in the same Anim-FX folder where you found your .swf file. Once the file transfer is complete, click on O.K. and close your FTP SPACE.

9) Now open an EASY DESIGNER page as you normally would. Then click on INSERT near the top left corner of the page and then click on ADVANCED HTML. Move your mouse to the space provided and press CONTROL V. This will paste the HTML code which you had previously saved, into your EASY DESIGNER page. Then click on O.K. After that, move the Flash Intro. where you want it on your page and save the page as you normally would. Note: You will not be able to preview your Flash Intro. until you have saved your page and closed EASY DESIGNER. You will need to go to the page address to see the Flash Intro. appear as it should.

10) It is recommended that you copy the .swf and .txt files to another directory on your computer immediately afterwards, especially when you want to use the same effect template again, because in the Anim-FX directory, only one effect with the same name can exist.

11) Here is where you are going to benefit from the peculiar way of saving the files. Whenever you want to make any changes to the text, font size, position or color, you simply open the text file within your Anim-FX folder and just change the relevant data directly in the text file. Save the new .txt file in your FTP SPACE after clicking on UTILITIES within your FTP SPACE to delete the original .txt file. That's all there is to it. Any changes will be directly reflected in your animation!