F-IN-BOX, .NET Edition Review

F-IN-BOX is a .NET component that enhances Macromedia / Adobe Flash Player ActiveX features. It does not use its own engine to display movies, but instead provides a wrapper around official swflash.ocx/flash.ocx code. It is thus possible to avoid certain Macromedia / Adobe Flash Player ActiveX limitations. Features at a glance: 1. Loads Flash movies directly from memory 2. Creates Flash-enabled applications which are ready to work even if the Flash Player ActiveX is not installed! 3. Transparency is fully supported! 4. Ability to play Flash Video (FLV) from stream. 5. Enable/disable flash sounds. 6. Get a snap image of the current flash movie frame. 7. Creates code which is compatible with any version of Flash (3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9). 8. Flash External API. Using F-IN-BOX, you can load any Flash movie directly from memory. No temporary files! Load any movie on-the-fly from any supported source. For example, you can put one or more Flash movies in the resource section of your application and then load it from the .EXE! Feel the portability and power of F-IN-BOX! By default, the control will use the swflash.ocx/flash.ocx file which is already installed on the system. The control can alternatively use any swflash.ocx/flash.ocx file you provide using any supported source. Thanks to this method, your application will work even if the Flash Player ActiveX does not exist on the target system. With F-IN-BOX, hassling with Flash Player ActiveX installation issues is a thing of the past! Demos, complete with source code, are available now! One of the problems with Flash programming is that you have to control what version of Flash you are using. For example, the property "Stacking" exists only in Flash 5 but doesn't exist in later revisions. F-IN-BOX automatically detects which Flash version is in use and prevents a failure if access to nonexistent properties or methods is attempted.

New in 3.0: 1) Streaming is fully supported! New in 2.0: 1) Load flash movies from memory directly (no temporary files!). Protect your flash movies. 2) Create flash-enabled applications which are ready to work even when the Macromedia Flash Player ActiveX is not installed! 3) Transparency is fully supported! 4) Ability to play Flash Video (FLV) from stream 5) Enable/disable flash sounds 6) Get a snap image of the current flash movie frame 7) Write code which is compatible with any version of Macromedia Flash Player ActiveX (3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9). 8) Flash External API

A standard Windows PC

Awful

Poor

Average

Good

Excelent