Monthly Archives: July 2006

SWFObject 1.4.3 released

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Please note that there is an issue with this version of SWFObject. When clicking links that use href=”javascript:” in them, it triggers the new onbeforeunload, which makes all your swf files dissapear. All users should upgrade to 1.4.4.

This release only contains a single fix for a new issue that occurs when using Flash Player 9.

If you have multiple swf files embedded in a single HTML page, and at least one of those files uses ExternalInterface to add a callback, when you leave the page you will get an error that says “Line 56: Out of Memory”.

This only occurs in IE – no other browsers are affected, and it only happens when using Flash Player 9 whether you are using SWFObject or not.

The problem is in some new Javascript code that was inserted into Flash Player 9 to fix a bug in the IE browser. This IE bug affected swf files that connected to streaming media servers – to learn more about it you can read this blog post.

After working with Adobe, we came up with a Javascript fix for the streaming media issue and I used a variant of this code in the 1.4.2 version of SWFObject. All was fine then, until Flash Player 9 was released, and it turns out Adobe included their own Javascript (that is very similar to the fix in SWFObject) to fix the streaming media problems in IE. The only problem is that the code they used doesn’t like it when there is more than one swf embedded in a page.

So to get to the point, this new version of SWFObject just removes the ‘bad’ code that Flash Player 9 inserts into the page and instead uses the cleanup code from the previous version of SWFObject that has been working fine for Flash Player 8.

Go grab a copy now – anyone using ExternalInterface needs to be aware of this issue and should upgrade their SWFObject script immediately if you have any pages with more than one swf embedded in it.

Here’s a direct download link, or you can get it out of the SVN repository, or visit the SWFObject page and get it from there.

Adobe user group meeting tonight in NYC

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Schematic will be hosting the first of many Adobe User Group meetings tonight at the NYC office. If you are looking for something to do, stop on by. There will be two presentations:

  1. 7-8pm: Simulating Physics with Flash by Alec Cove
  2. 8-9pm: OOP Animation with Fuse by Roger Braunstein

The meeting will take place at 41 E. 11th st, 6th Floor at the Schematic NY office. The entrance is on 11th St. just east of University.

More information can be had on the AUG website.

Speaking at Flash on the Beach

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Flash on the Beach is a new Flash conference this December in Brighton Beach, UK. I’ll be heading out to give a SWFObject presentation. I’m really excited about this one – it’s got a bunch of great speakers lined up already and they are still adding more every day. This will be my first time speaking at a conference over seas*, so I’m super excited about that as well.

* The OFFF festival flew me out to barcelona in 2001 to show some Flash creatures, but I didn’t give a presentation, they were just hanging out in one of the side rooms.

Vacation!

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On Friday I’ll be leaving for Europe for 2 weeks of wandering around with a big backpack and sleeping on trains. So if you send me e-mail after Friday, you probably won’t get a response for a couple of weeks.

If you have SWFObject questions, try posting them to the SWFObject list, there are a few hundred people on there that have plenty of experience using it and can probably answer any questions you might have.