June 13, 2001 - Streamlining Flash Embedding

Yehuda Shiran June 13, 2001
Streamlining Flash Embedding
Tips: June 2001

Yehuda Shiran, Ph.D.
Doc JavaScript

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 flashcheck2.js does exactly this, as well as other stuff. For example, it checks whether a Flash player exists (Flash plug-in or ActiveX control), and whether its version is higher than the minimum required by the application.

The JavaScript include file flashcheck2.js is different from the one we used so far, flashcheck.js, in that the Flash object is returned from the function Flash_embedSWF(), instead of being generated in the main program. The two files, flashcheck.js and flashcheck2.js are different in one line only. The function Flash_embedSWF() in flashcheck2.js includes a statement for returning the Flash object to the caller:

  return (eval('window.document.'+ id));

Here is flashcheck2.js:

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, id, 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="' + id + '" 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="' + id + '"' +
 'pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/shockwave/download/index.cgi?P1_Prod_Version=ShockwaveFlash"></embed></OBJECT>');
  eval('window.document.'+ id + '.Rewind()');
  return (eval('window.document.'+ id));
}
function sonified_flash(id, myFrame){
  if(!Flash_checkForMinPlayer()) {return;}
  mySwf = eval('window.document.' + id);
  if (mySwf.PercentLoaded()<100) return
  mySwf.GotoFrame(myFrame);
  mySwf.GotoFrame(0);
}