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Yehuda Shiran May 29, 2001
Embedding Flash Movies
Tips: May 2001

Yehuda Shiran, Ph.D.
Doc JavaScript

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In some of your applications you may need to use Flash movies and JavaScript directly, without any prepackaged APIs such as FlashSound JavaScript API. You will enjoy more features, methods, and properties, but you'll have to take care of all the tiny details that are taken for granted when using FlashSound API, for example.

One of the "tiny" details is embedding the Flash object. The JavaScript file flashmoviecheck.js does exactly this, and other stuff. It also checks for Flash plug-ins, and minimum player version. It is different than the sound-based flashsoundcheck.js in that the dimensions should be adjusted to the movie size. We use the 100% value for both WIDTH and HEIGHT. We also changed the default quality to "high". Here is the code:

winIEpass = ((navigator.appName.indexOf("Microsoft") != -1) && 
  (navigator.appVersion.indexOf("Windows") != -1)) && 
  (parseFloat(navigator.appVersion) >= 4) ? true : false;

NNpass = ((navigator.appName == "Netscape") && 
  (navigator.userAgent.indexOf("Mozilla") != -1) && 
  (parseFloat(navigator.appVersion) >= 4) && 
  (navigator.javaEnabled())) ? true : false;

  supportedBrowser = (winIEpass || NNpass) ? true : false;

// check for Flash Plug-in in Mac or Win Navigator. Get plug-in version.

minPlayer = 4;
var mySwf;

function Flash_checkForPlugIn() {
  var plugin = (navigator.mimeTypes &&
  navigator.mimeTypes["application/x-shockwave-flash"]) ?
  navigator.mimeTypes["application/x-shockwave-flash"].enabledPlugin : 0;
  if (plugin) {
    var pluginversion = parseInt(plugin.description.substring(plugin.description.indexOf(".")-1)) 
    if(pluginversion >= minPlayer) {return true;}
  }
  return false;
}

// vbscript check for Flash ActiveX control in windows IE
if(supportedBrowser && winIEpass) {
  document.write(
    '<script language=VBScript>' + '\n' +
    'Function Flash_checkForActiveX()' + '\n' +
    'Dim hasPlayer, playerversion' + '\n' +
    'hasPlayer = false' + '\n' +
    'playerversion = 10' + '\n' +
    'Do While playerversion >= minPlayer' + '\n' +
    'On Error Resume Next' + '\n' +
    'hasPlayer = (IsObject(CreateObject(\"ShockwaveFlash.ShockwaveFlash.\" & playerversion & \"\")))' + '\n' +
    'If hasPlayer = true Then Exit Do' + '\n' +
    'playerversion = playerversion - 1' + '\n' +
    'Loop' + '\n' +
    'Flash_checkForActiveX = hasPlayer' + '\n' +
    'End Function' + '\n' +
    '<\/script>'
  );
}

function Flash_checkForMinPlayer() {
  if(!supportedBrowser) return false;
  if(NNpass) return (Flash_checkForPlugIn());
  if(winIEpass) return (Flash_checkForActiveX());
}

function Flash_embedSWF(srcURL, swfbgColor) {

  if (!Flash_checkForMinPlayer()) return;

  var defaultColor = (document.bgColor != null) ? document.bgColor : "#ffffff";
  var bgcolor = (swfbgColor != null) ? swfbgColor : defaultColor;
  document.writeln(
    '<OBJECT classid="clsid:D27CDB6E-AE6D-11cf-96B8-444553540000"' +
'codebase="http://active.macromedia.com/flash2/cabs/swflash.cab#version=4,0,0,0"' +
    'ID="sonify" WIDTH="100%" HEIGHT="100%">' +
    '<PARAM NAME="movie" VALUE="' + srcURL + '">' + 
    '<PARAM NAME="quality" VALUE="high">' +
    '<PARAM NAME="wmode" VALUE="transparent">'+
    '<PARAM NAME="autostart" VALUE="false">'+
    '<PARAM NAME="bgcolor" VALUE=' + bgcolor + '>' +
    '<embed src="' + srcURL + '" quality="high"' + 'bgcolor="' + 
    bgcolor + '"' + 'width="100%" height="100%"' +
    'type="application/x-shockwave-flash" NAME="sonify"' +
 'pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/shockwave/download/index.cgi?P1_Prod_Version=ShockwaveFlash"></embed></OBJECT>');

  window.document.sonify.Rewind();
}

function sonified_flash(myFrame){
  if(!Flash_checkForMinPlayer()) {return;}

  mySwf = window.document.sonify;
  if (mySwf.PercentLoaded()<100) return

  mySwf.GotoFrame(myFrame);
  mySwf.GotoFrame(0);
}


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