Dynamic Image Parameters

In addition to the basic settings, such as the dimensions and path to the image being served, you can also provide additional parameters to the dynamic image. The parameters available vary with the type of image served.

Flash Parameters

For SWF images, any parameters specified in the Dynamic Image Specifications dialog box are passed to the SWF similar to how parameters are passed from a web page. This allows you to customize a single SWF file in various ways, without having to modify the SWF file itself.

For example, when creating a stock quote display SWF, you may not know what company to display. Instead of hard-coding the company identifier into the SWF file, pass it as a parameter by putting it into the “Parameters” field of the dynamic media item, as shown on the left.

You can then access this “code” parameter, as well as any other parameters you may want to pass, from the loaderInfo object in the SWF file like this:

loaderInfo.parameters.code

This parameter can be sent to a web service providing live stock quotes, such as the one available from Yahoo.

HTML Parameters

Parameters entered for the HTML type will simply be appended to the URL as query string parameters, separated by a question mark. This can be used to pass such parameters to the web server serving the content.

Still Image Parameter

Still images support only the single, optional parameter:

missingImageIsOK

to indicate that a missing image should be displayed as entirely transparent, rather than giving an error message.

Desktop Parameter

The Path and Parameters fields are ignored when a desktop image is used. The Image Server simply transfers the desktop image to displays.