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Detecting the flash plugin 1

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flasher

Technical User
Mar 4, 2002
245
US
When you come to all those flash sites out there that start playing the flash site immediately when you get there (without giving you an option first of downloading the plugin or of entering a static site) what is the method for doing that? Is there a setting which will detect automatically if the plugin is there ? and assuming there is such a setting,and the plugin is not there, what will the user see? A blank screen or a prompt to go get the plugin? Or will it automatically install the plugin without the user even knowing? I'm a bit uncertain on this whole topic. Can anyone set me straight? thanx.
 
That's generally done using a "plug-in" detector that might be combined with the user's browser & resolution detection, to either re-direct this user, to one particular version of the site, or simply offer him to use the html version of the site if it exists.

Nowadays, since Flash is installed on over 95% of machines, such detection is not really necessary, and if you use the Publish feature of Flash to output the html in which the .swf will be embedded, the html will hold lines that will automatically detect the presence of the current Flash player, and re-direct the user to a download site, if it isn't installed, or if the installed version isn't the latest.

If you still want to go ahead in using such a detection script, this seems to be the ultimate:

...But is all that work really necessary for possibly 4-5% of users?

Regards,
new.gif
 
Are you saying that by simply publishing the flash movie to a regular html file, the page will automatically check for the flash player and send them to a download site if necessary?! That really does seem too easy!

 
I thought that was what I was saying!

Consider this html, the bold lines are the ones that check for an intalled player, and re-directs the user to the Macromedia download site, if it isn't.
Code:
<HTML>
<HEAD>
<TITLE>tab</TITLE>
</HEAD>
<BODY bgcolor=&quot;#999999&quot;onLoad=&quot;flashfile.focus()&quot;>
<!-- URL's used in the movie-->
<!-- text used in the movie-->
<OBJECT
classid=&quot;clsid:D27CDB6E-AE6D-11cf-96B8-444553540000&quot;
codebase=&quot;
Code:
ID=flashfile WIDTH=600 HEIGHT=400>
 <PARAM NAME=movie VALUE=&quot;tab.swf&quot;> <PARAM NAME=loop VALUE=false> <PARAM NAME=menu VALUE=false> <PARAM NAME=quality VALUE=high> <PARAM NAME=bgcolor VALUE=#999999> <EMBED name=&quot;flashfile&quot; src=&quot;tab.swf&quot; loop=false menu=false quality=high bgcolor=#999999  WIDTH=600 HEIGHT=400 TYPE=&quot;application/x-shockwave-flash&quot;
PLUGINSPAGE=&quot;
Code:
></EMBED>
</OBJECT>
</BODY>
</HTML>

Please note that the extra added &quot;;&quot; at the end of the &quot;blue&quot; links should not be there... TGML on this forum adds them while it shouldn't.

Regards,
new.gif
 
Wow. Thank you for the eye opener. I never realized that.
 
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