Flash and browser differences

[Madge]

Hi everyone!

I have been experimenting with two off-the-shelf Flash intros (just trial downloads at present) for my website, from different suppliers.

The first ran fine on Explorer but would not work on Navigator. Once I tidied up the HTML a bit and deleted the EMBED element, it validated against XHTML 1.0 Transitional.

The other ran fine on both Explorer and Navigator but of course I would have to delete the EMBED element for it to validate against either XHTML or HTML which would (I presume) stop it working on Navigator.

Question: is it a simple choice between catering for Navigator or validation, or are there workrounds? For example is there a way to mask the EMBED element so it still validates?

I could always provide two paths from my index.html to my homepage.htm (one via the Flash intro, the second via some other distraction for my Netscape visitors) but I would prefer something more elegant.

I don't know Flash from Domestos, and at present I don't have time to learn, hence the idea of buying a readymade intro, but they mostly seem either expensive or naff and usually both.

My cunning plan was for a few larger files to preload while the Flash is playing before the visitor reaches my homepage proper. Is this a workable scheme? Or does the Flash movie monopolise the bandwidth anyway?

I don't expect you guys to do all my work for me, but so far you have done a super job of pointing me to helpful online references.

[degsy]

Have a read through this:
http://www.outofthetrees.co.uk/resou..._standards.php

It's funny. After all the criticism that IE gets it's Netscape who have had this invalid tag for years.

[Madge]

How do you people know all this stuff?

Degsy's reference was right on target again.

I now have a Flash intro that validates against XHTML 1.0 Transitional and runs on IE and Navigator.

It looks rather horrible but that is not the fault of Degsy or the ingenious David Robertson. It was the principle that I was interested in. The real answer to my question seems to be that, yes, one does have to choose between validation or Netscape unless one practises some dubious coding which David Robertson rightly says is against the spirit of XML.

He says the best answer is write a custom DTD, and if that, for the time being at least, defeated even him I do not think it is a job for me. I am still slithering about on the practice slopes of XHTML.

One problem with my intro running in Navigator is that I do not know how to make it scale to fill the available window. I tried inserting 100% in the width and height but it choked, so I inserted fixed measurements in pixels. I then could not position it in the middle of the window. I tried align="middle" and then "absmiddle" without effect. So I put it in a single cell table aligned "center" and that worked. To stop it butting under the address bar I inserted a transparent gif in another row above. That also worked (and validates) but the curious thing is that adding that extra row stopped it running in IE on my local drive.

I have not before come across something that runs on the web in IE and Navigator and locally in Navigator but not locally in IE.

I expect before long someone will write a DTD we can all adopt and amend. Until then I think I will leave Flash intros alone.

Thanks Degsy. I was impressed by your lightning response.

[Steven.Bentley]

Good work Degs

[Madge]

Hi

Before I reduce anyone else to my state of confusion, I should add that the last part of my previous posting was total rubbish. Once I cleared my cache I saw that putting the (Flash) object within a table stopped it running in Microsoft Explorer whether locally or on the internet (which makes more sense).

I presume that the td element may not contain the object element?

In this connection I find that the W3Schools site clearly lists attributes but I find it harder to ascertain which elements can be contained within other elements.

[degsy]

A TD should be able to contain any element.

Could you post your code or url to page?

[Madge]

Hi Degsy et al

I don't really want to pursue the Flash-within-a-table issue. This solution would impair the movie for Explorer viewers for the sake of a small minority of Navigator viewers.

I would rather provide a non-Flash route to my homepage proper for Navigator users, and by depriving them of the wondrous experience of a jerky Flash movie punish Netscape for their nonconformance to XHTML and HTML.

You can see the Flash template before I messed the code about (by using David Robertson's wrapper) here:

http://www.bwkc.com/templates/intro2/intro2.html

Below is the code after I messed with it. It does validate ok against XHTML 1.0 Transitional. The code from object runs fine in Explorer and scales to fill the available window. The code from embed also runs fine but because I do not know how to make it scale (or even if this is possible) I have inserted fixed pixel height (420) and width (745) and the movie positions itself in the top left-hand corner. I could use margins or a table to position it more centrally but this then spoils the view in Explorer.

The ideal would be to make the movie scale in Navigator as in Explorer. Second best would be to make the movie centre itself in Navigator without affecting Explorer.

<!DOCTYPE html
PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN"
"http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">

<html>

<head>

<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1" />

<title>intro2</title>

</head>

<body style="margin: 0px; background-color: navy">

<object classid="clsid27CDB6E-AE6D-11cf-96B8-444553540000"
codebase="http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=5,0,0,0"
width="100%" height="100%" id="intro2">

<param name="movie" value="intro2.swf" />
<param name="quality" value="high" />
<param name="bgcolor" value="#000080" />

<script type="text/javascript">
//<![CDATA[
if (navigator.mimeTypes && navigator.mimeTypes["application/x-shockwave-flash"]){
document.write('<embed src="intro2.swf" width="745" height="420" align="middle" quality="high" bgcolor="#000080"');
document.write('width="745" height="420" type="application/x-shockwave-flash"');
document.write('pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/shockwave/download/index.cgi?P1_Prod_Version=ShockwaveFlash" />');
}else{
document.write('<img src="default.gif" width="745" height="420" alt="default');
document.write('"Default message" />');
};
//]]>
</script>

</object>

</body>

</html>

I could ask David Robertson if it is possible to make the window scale using his wrapper for embed. I suspect the answer is "no" and that we should wait for some genius to write a new DTD.