You must be one of the countless bloggers who hate WordPress.com for forbidding useful html tags like <object>, <iframe> and <frameset>. These tags are automatically stripped when you save your draft. Without these tags, Flash applications cannot be loaded on your blog. The solution is to use the gigya function. Gigya is a legitimate tool in paid WordPress account, but its use in free WordPress.com blogs is not officially documented nor explicitly forbidden by the host.
This simple code is all you need to load flash application from external server to your free WordPress blog:
[gigya src= “http://externalserver.com/a.swf” type= “application/x-shockwave-flash” allowscriptaccess = “always” width= “500” height= “500” flashvars = “samplestring”]
* Remember to replace the value for src, width, height and flashvars with your own. Leave “type” value as is.
Let’s compare these gigya attributes with traditional HTML attributes used for loading flash:
Example of HTML tags for loading flash application:
<object width=”500″ height=”500″ type=”application/x-shockwave-flash” data=”“http://externalserver.com/a.swf”>
<param name=”movie” value=”http://externalserver.com/a.swf”/>
<param name=”flashvars” value= “samplestring”/>
<param name=”allowscriptaccess” value=”always”/>
<param name=”swfversion” value=”10″/>
<param name=”expressinstall” value= “http://externalserver.com/expressInstall.swf”/>
<param name=”wmode” value=”transparent”/>
</object>
You can see that gigya’s src, type, allowscriptaccess, width, height and flashvars attributes correspond to the following HTML attributes:
Gigya HTML
src = <object data=…>
type = <object type=..>
width = <object width=..>
height = <object height=..>
flashvars = <param name = “flashvars”>
allowscriptaccess = <param name = “allowscriptaccess”>
To implement gigya, just use the HTML value for each gigya-defined element. For instance, gigya’s “src” element corresponds to the “data” element of the “object” tag (HTML).
[giga src= "http://externalserver.com/a.swf" ….]
Experimenting With Gigya on WordPress Using Free External Server
You can test gigya even if you don’t have your own external server for your flash application. You can use Tagul’s server for cloud tags (it’s free). When you sign up with Tagul.com, you can set up a tag cloud in the form of flash application.
What values should you use for gigya src and flashvars elements? Tagul will automatically create an HTML code similar to the HTML example above after you set up your cloud setting. That HTML code contains the same elements indicated in my HTML example. All you need to do is to use the attribute values of Tagul-generated HTML code in the corresponding gigya elements.
Remember to click the HTML mode of WordPress when posting the gigya code on your blog.
