Category Archives: javascript

SWFUpload

Posted on by

SWFUpload is a neat little tool that alows you to use Flash as a file uploader in your web forms. If your users have Flash, the script writes out a Flash uploader, and if they don’t, they get a nice HTML upload form field. Very nice, and it uses SWFObject for the plugin detection + embedding.

This is a great example of using Flash where Flash can do something better than HTML. And doing it in a way that uses progressive enhancement so it doesn’t require Flash. It’s just that Flash makes it better.

SWFAddress

Posted on by

SWFAddress is a fantastic little utility that allows you to easily add deep linking and back button support to your Flash websites. From the SWFAddress website:

SWFAddress is a small script that sits on top of SWFObject and provides deep linking for Flash websites and applications. In other words it enables the Back, Forward and Refresh buttons of the browser and creates unique URLs with page titles that can be sent over email or IM.

SWFAddress uses the ExternalInterface functionality introduced in Flash Player 8. It has been tested on the following browsers:

* Internet Explorer 6.0 and 7.0
* Mozilla Firefox 1.5
* Safari 2.04
* Opera 9.02

It’s a great little script, and something I’ve wanted to put together for a long time. Even better: It was designed to work with SWFObject, so if you are already using SWFObject to embed your movies, it’s really really easy to just slap in some deep link and back button support.

Go check it out.

Using progressive enhancement with Flash

Posted on by

There’s a fantastic article on Adobe’s devnet site that Bobby wrote (he’s the guy who wrote SWFObject’s biggest competition, UFO*). All about progressive enhancement with Flash. It includes helping your Flash content get picked up by search engines, supporting people without the Flash player, and a ton of other good info. Go have a read.

* But hey, it’s not really a competition, use whatever works best for you.

On embedding Flash content using Web Standards (yes, again)

Posted on by

Lately there’s been a bit of buzz around embedding plugins while adhering to Web Standardsâ„¢. First this ALA article came out and said “bye bye embed”, then yesterday one of the WaSP nerds posted something about “Valid Flash, video and audio embed (object) markup”.

It’s understandable to want to try and force browsers to display your plugin content in a way that adheres to “Web Standards”. It’s a very popular subject, and it’s been covered a few times before. These two recent articles don’t uncover anything new, other than bringing to light (via the comments on them) that Javascript is the only viable method of embedding Flash (and other plugin based) content on the web today.

Now I’m going to say something here that might seem a little controversial, but I really want to get the point across, so I’m going to use some ‘shock and awe’ tactics:

Using only the object tag to embed your plugin content (especially Flash content) is fucking stupid.

There. I said it.

You may say that I’m a bit biased because I wrote some fancy pants Javascript Flash embed script. Maybe I have a hidden agenda of world domination based on plugin detection. So while I no doubt would like to dominate the world, let me say that my reasons for advocating the use of Javascript are much more mundane.

This post was originally going to be titled “Flash Satay considered harmful,” and since the main topic are these “Web Standards” compliant ways of only using the object tag to embed plugin content, I’ll focus on the issues with doing so:

  • “Click to activate” in IE. The only way to get around this is to use Javacript.
  • No plugin detection. While Ben says ‘meh’ to this, it’s a very important aspect of the user experience. If I have Flash Player 6 installed, and I visit a site that uses Flash 9 content, my player will go ahead and try to play that swf anyway. I could end up seeing half of the content, or broken content, or who knows what. Do you really want to show your users broken content?
  • Issues in older Safari versions: Safari pre 1.2 will completely ignore param tags, which are often used to pass information to the plugin. This means broken content for your users.
  • Support for the object tag varies widely from browser to browser. Do you think that just because you work around all the quirks in the 3 main browsers today, it will still work when the next new browser is released?
  • A bug in Flash Player 9 can cause the browser to crash if you have more than one swf on the page and are using ExternalInterface to communicate with Javacsript. While this isn’t specifically related to how the swf is embedded, SWFObject does include a fix for this issue.
  • Using Flash Satay or other ‘object only’ methods will not stream your Flash movies to the user – this means extra work for you in creating a ‘loader’ swf
  • JAWS will ignore it.

It’s a pretty long list, right? Now if you compare that to the user experience when using SWFObject (or other Javascript based techniques), you can see a noticable difference:

  • The only time a user doesn’t see Flash is if they have Javascript turned off, or they don’t have the required version of the Flash Plugin. This one is a two parter: One, do you think that people really turn off Javascript but leave Flash on? Consider the type of person who turns Javascript off. They are probably the über nerd user who considers anything that isn’t text to be completely evil. They browse the web using Lynx. They probably stay a mile away from the Flash Plugin anyway. The beauty of the way SWFObject works is that even these people get content if you set it up right. Since you put alternate content ‘under’ your swf, they will just see the alternate content. As long as you set it up right (you do, don’t you?) they may never even know they are missing out on Flash content.
  • They don’t have to click your movie once to ‘activate’ it
  • Their browser doesn’t crash just because you had two swfs on the same page that use ExternalInterface
  • They only see Flash content if their browser and plugin support it.

Taking all of the above into account, the choice is very clear: Javascript wins hands down. Any questions?

Now that all of that is taken care of, I wanted to address a couple of things:

First, these types of posts are not good for the Web Standards community. Basically what’s happening is highly visible people (even if they aren’t that well known, they still carry the WaSP name, or have articles on well respected online publications like A List Apart) are posting information that is bad for your users. Even worse is that they are doing it in the name of “Web Standards” and not taking into consideration any of the other options outside of pure HTML. This is extremely bad for the Web Standards movement. It makes the standards advocates look like crazed zealots who don’t care about user experience, but only care about adhering to the written rules exactly how they are stated even if it hurts them.

Second, you may be saying “well, if I can’t use the object tag, then what good is it?” and that is a FANTASTIC question. What good is it? Beats me, because the object tag is completely and utterly broken in nearly every web browser out there. Want to do something about it? Maybe you could join WaSP and create a task force to fix how browsers handle plugins?

UPDATE: I added this as a comment below, but wanted to put it in the main post as well: I want to say that as for Flash Satay: It was fantasic for the people who use(d) it, and in it’s time it was great. But now that certain big issues with it have been discovered, and Flash has changed over time, it’s time for it to retire. This is something I’ve been meaning to mention for a while, and it was sort of implied on the SWFObject page. So, since we are on the subject, it’s time to give it up.

UPDATE (8-17-2006): Ben has posted a follow up.