Ok here's a good one.

How the hell do I add a "play" button to a "SWF" file? (like on a youtube vid)
My wife seems to think alot of the vids she gets submitted have the function built in?

What software do I need?

youtube is not swf but flv. But they both originate one way or another from Flash, and in there you can add buttons and video controls.

Dropping swfs and flv's in the browser they should play because browsers usually have Flash plugins installed (and will tell you if you need to download and install it). You can also download Flash player which plays swfs (and I assume FLVs) on the desktop.

Yeah, Im not sure Ive explained it properly.
Can I add a transport/control panel to a swf?
The site doesnt have its own, and like I said above she seems to think the swf's come with the control panel built in.
Sorry if Im not making sense.
cheers for your help!!

Someone will be able to give you better info as I haven't really tried to do this myself yet (and probably wont ever now considering by the time I'm ready to, html5 + some fucking single codec will be more mainstream), but you can add basic player controls in the html (a play button) but to add more advanced controls it has to be part of the file. Look for flash video export or similar keywords I guess. Finding something you don't have to pay for will be the trick (I mean offered as freeware).

Yeah ShockWaveFlash files don't contain contols by default, eg: http://www.horness.com/tools/screenclean.swf

If you want to edit Flash you should be using Adobe Flash (not really dreamweaver). But I'm not really sure of the process.

Maybe you can convert the SWF to AVI or something then upload to YouTube?

I just realised I mightn't have been clear either, so I'll clarify a couple of small things.
.swf is a format produced by Flash, it contains interactive content, animations, sounds etc,
.flv is also a format output from Flash (usually) but it holds video content and optionally player controls.
So if it's a swf that just holds animation and sound and no interactivity then yeah, maybe you can convert it to a video format (google swf to avi/video/mov/mp4 converter or something) and let youtube host it for you then embed that in your website.

Yes SWF can contain video controls. It's a very flexible medium, it can do anything really, you just have to code it. If you have an existing SWF it's going to be tough to add video controls to it. You really need the original un-compiled Flash project. Regardless, you need the Adobe Flash Professional software to do anything like that. Well either that or if it's a video made in some video editing software, that software might have the ability to output a SWF with video controls.

FLV is something entirely different. It's a video container, like MPG, MOV, MKV etc... It's played usually inside Flash (SWF) based players (like on YouTube for example), not actually generated by Flash.

Ahh good to know.
I cant use youtube because I dont want to lose the ownership of the vid (as in people can embed it elsewhere)
its for a news site, and its exclusive content.
Cheers all.

Ignore me, I was saying Youtube allows you to prevent embedding, but that would stop you from embedding it too, DUH

The question you should be asking, is if people are sending you "video's", why on earth are they sending you a SWF file??

kinda like when people sent you "photos" and they give you a word document.

Ok dude, sorry I haven't been more helpful for ya. Been flat out with work / life / everything. Doing lots of overtime the last few weeks and generally running myself hard for a few months or so... but kicking ass at work and getting my efforts / skills noticed which is a good thing. Taking up a mentor / Management role soon.. plus getting lots of wild sex lately too which is also damn fine

I really think you're on the wrong track bro. Instead of trying to embed controls in SWF file, which is possible but convoluted and not that easy to do even for me. I reckon your best bet is to figure out how to convert the SWF file into something that can be easily embedded.. like WMV, then you can use WindowsMediaPlayer as an embedded player and have the content hosted locally.

Eg extract the zipfile and the video of course, view the webpage.
http://www.yousendit.com/download/OHo1Z281MHdQb0kwTVE9PQ

It uses ActiveX which I admit can require users to authorise the video depending on their security settings but thats probably no biggie (pun!)
(and no worse than how 'paste' works on biggie).

An alternative to an embedded link would be to use a link to the file which would be downloaded and played by WindowsMediaPlayer in the Windows context as opposed to the IE context. (or whatever f'n browser is l33t at the time). See the webpage for how that would work.

You should have given me a call or something first. I admit sometimes I don't feel up to working on other peoples PC's but always happy to 'consult', especially for you guys of course.. I owe you for all the dinners

This is the only format the site uploads, youtube can be embedded but they preferd swf.