Microsoft IE ActiveX tactic interferes with Flash content
For visitors to your Web site who use IE, as of now (or very soon), your Flash content will not work properly for them. Your users with Firefox, Safari, Opera, etc., will not be affected. But all those average joes using IE are … well, screwed.
If you have a SWF embedded on the page with a simple OBJECT tag, you should probably change it to a JavaScript handler instead. The easiest way to do this is with SWFObject (formerly known as FlashObject). Because of Adobe’s lawyers, the author of the absolutely wonderful FlashObject had to change the name and rewrite his script (read about that here).
Some of my students today had difficulty getting the new SWFObject to work. I’m really bummed out about that, because it really worked GREAT before. But I feel very sure that the bugs will be ironed out very soon, because the author, Geoff Stearns, is one of those great open-source guys who give us useful tools for free. I’m confident he’s going to get SWFObject (back) to 100 percent reliability within a day or two!
Read all about the crazy Microsoft IE thing here and here and here.
Technorati tags: online media | Flash journalism | Flash | Microsoft | browser | IE | Internet Explorer
I covered this same issue as it relates to QuickTime movies on my blog last week. I was going to write a follow-up on Flash with a link to one of the pages you linked, but you beat me to it.
April 25, 2006 at 2:52 amYes, I read that post of yours. I do not like that solution posted at Macromedia … even though FlashObject — er, SWFObject — requires some setup time, once that’s done, it is easier to use that writing bespoke JavaScript every time.
April 25, 2006 at 2:08 pmi found adobe’s “solution” to be a bit cumbersome, so i use this one: http://www.happinessu.org
April 28, 2006 at 5:42 pm