Puzzled IRL about online puzzles!

October 8, 2009 11:08 AM

I'd like to make an embeddable flash jigsaw puzzle out of a photo. Can you point me in the right direction?

I've tried using the free puzzle generator on Flash-Gear's website, and I thought it would work, but it's not as customizable as I'd like it to be (particularly, the ability to scale within the browser).

We're trying to share the news of our expectant baby with the family, and are making a puzzle page on our own website, so we're trying to get a puzzle put together today that can be embedded.

I tested the flash gear puzzle on a friend last night. They used a netbook with a small screen and half the puzzle pieces were hidden unless she scrolled down. This was ok in this case, because I was talking her through it (took about 30 minutes!), but I want to make sure that others don't have to scroll around to find pieces.

I tried downloading the SWF puzzle object from Flash Gear's website, but it's embedded in a way I'm not familiar with. An example of the embed source is:

http://two.flash-gear.com/npuz/puz.php?c=f&o=1&id=2599364&k=42505416&s=90&w=630&h=450

I'm used to a simple http://website.com/puzzle.swf

Ideally, I'd like to use this puzzle if someone can tell me how to download it in its entirety so I can use it on my own website.

Another option would be to use a more powerful puzzle generator online (a little less desirable because I've already made a video tutorial to show older relatives how to maneuver the flash gear puzzle).

Any help is appreciated. Thanks!

posted by siclik to computers & internet (8 comments total)

Jigzone.com will let you make a puzzle out of your picture and post it on your site, but it will require display of their logo, and I'm not sure about the browser resizing.
posted by soelo at 11:28 AM on October 8 [1 favorite]

Yeah, I looked at Jigzone earlier, but they have a thumbnail of what the completed puzzle should look like, which is a dead giveaway to what we're trying to accomplish. If they had a way to disable that, I would use that site hands-down. It has EVERY OTHER feature I wanted.
posted by siclik at 11:38 AM on October 8

Is there any way to trim off about 100 pixels off of the left size of JigZone's embedded puzzle? Maybe via CSS or "float" or constricting the width? Just an idea.

I don't need any of those controls - just the puzzle canvas really.
posted by siclik at 11:43 AM on October 8

I looked at your sample link and by changing the number after w, it changes the width. h for height.

http://two.flash-gear.com/npuz/puz.php?c=f&o=1&id=2599364&k=42505416&s=90&w=400&h=2000
posted by advicepig at 12:16 PM on October 8

Oops, I set that link to 2000 pixels high!
posted by advicepig at 12:16 PM on October 8

I did that too - but that's not quite the adjustment I'm looking for. I beleive changing those widths and heights actually changes the portion of the picture it imports before cutting it up into puzzle pieces.

For example, when I change them to 100x200, it takes a 100x200 square of the image I provided and crops the rest out, making a puzzle out of that small portion.

I'm pretty sure those adjustments are just to specify how big the picture is that I provided originally (and crop some out, if needed).
posted by siclik at 12:47 PM on October 8

Odd, I didn't notice that, but it appears you are right. When I set smaller numbers, it was just by chance that the pieces were more tightly clumped up in the middle.

I did, however, just notice that php page linked does scale the flash movie as you would expect, making the link you have just fine for making sure you wouldn't have to scroll. Have you tried putting it in an iframe?
posted by advicepig at 12:55 PM on October 8

Well, one thing I just realized is the size of the puzzle you end up with depends on the size of the original image you upload. Discovering that has helped a little, but I'm still left with a puzzle that doesn't scale very well.

I was able to make a very small puzzle that at least doesn't require scrolling at 800x600 resolution.

Yes, one of the links above does scale, but it also starts off by cropping off a lot of pieces.

Anyway, I'll try to use this smaller puzzle to accommodate those with lower resolution monitors. It just woulda been nice to have a scaling puzzle for the 90% of my family that uses higher resolution monitors.

Such is life.
posted by siclik at 2:31 PM on October 8