Webmedia Spider Software - Flash Rip Or Play Vers 3.1 Help

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Quick Newbie Help

Note: After the program starts the first time after installation there may or may not be Flash files listed in the FLASH Captured List. If there are files listed they will be > 100 Kb in size and may be worth ripping. Click the files to preview them. You may find files you have previously previewed on the NET. If you want to save them, click the Rip Flash Playing while playing them.

To get started ripping files can be approached in 2 ways:

1st way ) Type search parameters in the textbox at the bottom of the window. The default search parameters are 'FLASH GAMES'. When you click the Browse IE For button the program will minimize to the Zion Mode (compact upper left) and Internet Explorer will appear and execute a Google search for the parameters you typed in the textbox. Find sites with Flash content and let the Flash load in the browser.

2nd way) Click the Spider button to place the program in the Zion View out of your way. Open Internet Explorer to your Favorite Flash sites and load and play the Flash in the browser at the site.

Ripping the Flash movies found:

As you find Flash files and let them load fully in the browser, Flash Rip Or Play will monitor when they are completely loaded in the browser and then automatically open the file in its player and begin playing the Flash. When the file is playing in the player the Rip Flash Playing button will turn Red indicating the file can be ripped to your computer.

Important Options:

There are two options that must be checked for the program to automatically play the Flash movie when loaded in the browser. If you will click the OPTIONS button you will see the following two checked options:

Exclude Flash Files < min capture size (default 100 kb - Mostly Ads)

This option does what it says. It does not automatically play the files < 100k (default - see option added in 3.1 below) found in the browser page when checked and does not put them in the FLASH Captured List. Unchecking this option will cause ALL Flash files embedded in the browser pages to be included in the FLASH Captured List which could get kind of messy since there are a LOT of FLASH ads on these sites. Keeping the captured size to 100 K or more for the file size will give you more significant movies/games. It is suggested you leave this option checked unless you want to look at ads or a file that is less than 100k in size.

Auto Play Captured File > min capture size (default 100 kb) when in Zion View

This option allows the program to go from the Zion compact mode to the Full Play mode and automatically start playing a Captured FLASH file. A file is deemed captured by the program when it is completely loaded and playing in the IE browser and appears in the program's FLASH Captured List. You may uncheck this option if you do not want Flash Rip or Play to automatically play the file when loaded.

(Below Added in Version 3.1)

Pick a different minimum capture file size for Auto Play Captured files

This option allows you to select a minimum captured file size > 100 Kb for the Autoplay function.

Program Screen Size

This option allows you to select full or half screen play back of files in the Full Playback mode. Note: This option and all others can only be selected in the Preview Mode.

List Control:

The Flash Captured List, FLASH Browser Links and Ripped Flash Files lists can be right clicked to show menus for removing or playing the links in the lists.

Important info about your Internet Explorer Cache Files:

When your IE cache becomes too full of files from browsing, it can cause the program NOT to catch the Flash files in the Flash Captured List. To keep this from happening periodically clear your Internet cache through Internet Explorer.

Procedure to Clear the Internet Explorer Temporary Cache files:

1) Bring up Internet Explorer to any page.

2) Click on the Tools menu item and then Click Internet Options from the drop down menu.

3) The Internet Options window will appear. Select the General Tab.

4) Click the Delete button to clear the Temporary files created by Internet Explorer. Depending on the number of files this can take a while.

Known Issues:

Due to various website programming mechanisms for hiding Flash Direct Links there is no guarantee that every site you visit with Flash content can be ripped by Flash Rip Or Play. That is why there is a Free trial of the software so that you can find out if it works with your sites. The majority of sites tested allowed Capture of the Flash content either by direct links to the Flash content (Swf), Browser access to the embedded swf, or Internet Explorer Cache storage of the Flash content. The program provides ALL of these methods which allow you to get to the Flash in some manner. Most of the time ALL of these approaches work to Rip the Flash. In some cases only one or two of them work. After working with ALL methods you should be able to Rip the Direct Flash file by Playing it in the Player and looking for the Rip File Playing button to be enabled.

More General Info

Overview

Flash Rip Or Play  (tm)  is a tool  to Rip (download and save to your hard drive or Flash Drive) most Macromedia Flash game or movie files and their Website Pages and information containing direct embedded Flash (.swf) file links.

Features include Previewing the Flash Captured List in the program's built-in Flash player (or Preview External) , Ripping (downloading) using the Rip Flash Playing button to your hard drive or Flash drive to open and play at will, or managing Flash Browser Links for later preview or download of the embedded Flash in the program's own web browser. 

As you Rip, a list of the files saved to the program's folder is displayed in the Ripped Flash Files list that can be played or removed at will from your hard drive.

Microsoft Internet Explorer (MSIE ,version 5.0 or greater) is required as a minimum to locate the Flash links.  While running the program and as you surf web sites these Flash Links and their Flash content are located automatically in the Internet Explorer pages opened and a list and information associated with the links is built and remembered even if the Browser's page is closed.  

Flash Links are added to the program's Flash Browser Links or Flash Captured List (Flash Content) list automatically as you surf when the program is running and they will be remembered and available the next time the program is executed for preview or ripping. 

Cached Flash files are automatically created by Internet Explorer as you surf containing the actual Flash content and are captured for you to Preview and Rip at will through the Flash Captured List or Browser Flash Links list.

Data Lists of Links to Internet SWF files and associated links

Ripped Flash Files  - This list contains direct links to the files you have ripped to your hard drive under the program's Ripped Flash Files folder and can be opened and played through the built-in Flash player or externally.

Button Controls

Play Saved File - Open and play a ripped (downloaded) Flash file from computer in the built in Flash Player.

How to use- shows this page

Play -  Flash file in the Preview player

Rewind - Rewind the Flash file playing in the Preview Player

Full Mode - Full Player

Preview Mode  -  Preview player

Preview External - Open the file playing in the built-in player with any program on your computer that supports playing Flash Files.

Rip Flash Playing  - Rip  the Flash file from the built-in Flash player while Previewing or playing it.

Browse IE for - Enter  google search parameters like 'FLASH GAMES' (default) and click this button to open an Internet Explorer (IE) browser instance to search Google based on these parameters for websites containing Flash (SWF) files.  Once a page (link) is opened and a Flash file is streamed Flash Rip Or Play will capture the link information and display the cached files made by IE so that you can Play or Rip them. 

Preview information - Information in the form of the website's domain, the Page the direct link for the Flash file is located, and the Direct link to the flash file is provided for each link preview under the Preview window along with the Preview Player's cache download of the file to your system.  If the Direct Link is to your cache directory no Domain or Page link information will appear and NA will be substituted for the link.

Buttons under the Preview information are as follows:

GET FLASH - Downloads the FLASH to the built-in player using the direct link to the Flash file on the internet or local IE Cache. After downloaded it can be ripped using the 'Ripped Flash Playing' button.

OPEN Web Page - Opens the internet page containing the embedded flash file in the program's built-in browser. After the flash is loaded and the file appears in the FLASH Captured List it can be ripped using the Ripped Flash Playing button.

OPEN Website - Opens the home page (domain name) of the website where the Flash file was found in an external IE browser window.

Get Size - attempts to find the file size in bytes of the swf file from the internet or local IE cache. If the size cannot be obtained the 'Get Flash' button may not be able to get the direct Flash file because the direct link (path to the swf file) MAY be incorrect. Also, some sites do not return the size of their multimedia files directly from the internet to the client.