[Gary Finley]

I have some Flash files that were created under Windows but exported in Mac format. My machine doesn't recognize them as Flash. When I try to play them it brings up the "Choose Application" dialog. These same files open and play fine on another OS 10.3 machine.

I've tried setting the execute bits (chmod 755), and using XFiles to set the type/creator bits to the same values as those of a working Flash file. None of this helped. Thinking that they might have been munged by the mail attachment process, I tried copies imported with ftp. Same result.

The Get Info panel reports them as being of Kind: Document, instead of Kind: Application, which is what I see for the info of working Flash files.

Can anyone help me understand this, and fix these files so that I can play them? TIA.

[Jacke]

Originally posted by Gary Finley:
I have some Flash files that were created under Windows but exported in Mac format. My machine doesn't recognize them as Flash. When I try to play them it brings up the "Choose Application" dialog. These same files open and play fine on another OS 10.3 machine.

Usually Flash files are not applications, but have the extension .swf and need to be viewed within a web browser or an application that can read them. If you did save them as applications in Windows I don't know if all the data was saved, but if they work on another 10.3 system they should work on yours. The only things I can think of are that you saved the file as a Mac OS 9 application and your system doesn't have Classic installed, or that your system doesn't have Flash installed.

[Detrius]

I believe QuickTime should be able to open flash .swf files.

[Visnaut]

If working Flash "files" on his computer have the type "Application", I think it's safe to assume that what Gary means is that he exported a Flash animation on Windows as a Mac Projector app.

I'm pretty sure that the Windows version saves them as a .bin file so that all the mac-specific data isn't lost. Try running those files through Stuffit Expander (possibly adding a .bin extension to the end of them if they don't have that extension already).

In the future, Gary, you may just want to settle for bringing just the SWF file over to your mac if you just want to view it. You can open in it in Safari or any browser if your Flash plug-in is up to date. I would avoid Quicktime, as it fails to run Flash files with complex scripting. If you need to display them full screen, i believe you can also download a flash viewer program from Macromedia somewhere.

[Gary Finley]

Originally posted by Visnaut:
If working Flash "files" on his computer have the type "Application", I think it's safe to assume that what Gary means is that he exported a Flash animation on Windows as a Mac Projector app.

I'm pretty sure that the Windows version saves them as a .bin file so that all the mac-specific data isn't lost. Try running those files through Stuffit Expander (possibly adding a .bin extension to the end of them if they don't have that extension already).

Thanks for the reply. Unfortunately, I didn't create this file, or do the exporting. I've never written any flash, otherwise I'd know enough about how these things work to not have to ask this question.

You're doubtless correct that these are intended to be Mac Projector apps (whatever those are), since they have Projector in the file name. However, your suggestion of expanding them didn't work, with or without a .bin extension. Stuffit Expander says that the file does not appear to be compressed or encoded.

To reiterate the puzzle: the same file mailed to my buddy's machine shows a Flash icon (blue f in a white circle), has type Application, and displays the animation when double-clicked. On my Cube, the file has Kind: Document, and brings up a Choose Application Dialog when I try to run it. Meddling with the UNIX file permissions or the Type/Creator bits didn't make it work. I also tried adding a .swf extension. This spawns Quicktime, but QT just says that the file contains 'invalid media data'.