Photo-thwart. Uh-huh. Flash, flash, flash.

May 23, 2010 2:56 PM

Grrr. I'm trying to capture these photos and having a heck of a time. Help?

I've read this question from 2006 and I've been trying to follow along. Here's what I've got so far:

1. I have the decompiler mentioned (trial version).
2. I downloaded the file AS3Multiloader.swf from the NYTimes, betting that this file is a loader and if I decompile it I can find the .swf's that lead to the actual flash animation, decompile them, then get to and save the images. I decompiled the first .swf and... now I'm lost.

What am I missing/looking for? What's the next step that's obvious to you but I'm missing?

Yeah, I know I should just take a screen capture and call it a day, but I'm going for a geek merit badge here. And no, I'm not going to do anything untoward with the photos, I just love the clothes.

posted by Vavuzi to Computers & Internet (7 answers total)

Best answer: You don't need to bother with flash at all. If you look at the source code for this page, you will see the following link:
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/flash/tmag/templates/slideshow/data/02wellroversi.xml

If you view this link, you will see other links such as
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/blogs/themoment/posts/wellroversi1.jpg
which is the first image you're interested in. The other links are obtained by replacing the "1" by "2", etc.
posted by aroberge at 3:12 PM on May 23, 2010 [1 favorite]

Best answer: Go here. Save all the .jpg files (copy--paste the URLs, then save images from there)
posted by prenominal at 3:12 PM on May 23, 2010

Response by poster: OK, so you both get a best answer and I hang my head in shame.

Followup: I see how you found the source code (thanks, Firefox!), but how did you know that this:

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/flash/tmag/templates/slideshow/data/02wellroversi.xml

was the link I'd need? What's the tip-off? (I know I'm a pest, but I'm trying to learn what makes the intertube plumbing work. Just curious.)
posted by Vavuzi at 5:12 PM on May 23, 2010

It just seemed the right thing to try ("slideshow" in the url). In any case, for situations like this, I always look for embedded urls and see if they can lead to something interesting...
posted by aroberge at 5:34 PM on May 23, 2010

Many Flash interfaces use external data sources which are fed into Flash with XML. This is very useful because you don't have to create a different Flash file each time your content changes, you only edit the XML. Most Flash slideshows work this way.
posted by clearlydemon at 6:14 PM on May 23, 2010

One way to view what is loaded into a webpage is to use an extension that follows the network traffic. I like HttpFox, which works with Firefox. Enable it, and click start, and load the page fresh, you should see all the component files flutter by as network traffic. I loaded the page in question and I can then filter for the string "jpg" which gives me the file list, or I can filter on "xml" which gives me the same xml url mentioned by Vavusi: http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/flash/tmag/templates/slideshow/data/02wellroversi.xml.
posted by artlung at 6:30 PM on May 23, 2010

The website is really simple, so I just followed the source code until I saw a URL that looked like it could be the data for the slideshow. If it was a more complex website, obviously this approach would not have worked.
posted by prenominal at 6:59 PM on May 23, 2010