FlashObject embed Readme
http://blog.deconcept.com/flashobject/

v1.3c

Created: 10-14-2004
Last Updated: 02-14-2006

By: Geoff Stearns
geoff@deconcept.com
http://blog.deconcept.com/
--------------------------

Copyright (c) 2006 Geoff Stearns

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.
--------------------

Files:

readme.txt               - this file

flashobject.js           - FlashObject javascript file - this will need to be included in any html 
                           file that uses the FlashObject embed. This file is compressed with dojo
                           shrinksafe to save bandwidth. To view the uncompressed version, look at
                           source/flashobject_source.js

flashobject.html         - sample html file showing how to use the FlashObject embed

expressinstall.html      - sample html file showing how to use FlashObject with the ExpressInstall feature

fullpage.html            - sample html file showing a full page (100% by 100% flash embed)

flashversion.html        - sample page showing how to use FlashObject to determine the installed player version

fo_tester.swf             - sample swf used to test basic FlashObject functionality

source/fo_tester.fla      - sample fla for FlashObject testing. Open this to see how to use the ExpressInstall   
                           features

source/expressinstall.as - actionscript file used for ExpressInstall functionality

source/flashobject_source.as - uncompressed flashobject.js file - only provided for viewing, you should use
                                the production version (flashobject.js) on your website


These files are provided 'as is,' with no technical support provided, but if you 
find a problem, please e-mail me at geoff@deconcept.com so I can update/correct 
the problem and provide an updated version.


----------
Changelog:


2-14-06
[fixed] bug found in the custom ExpressInstall message. When publishing the fla as a Flash 8 swf, the upgrade message would not show up. This is due to the way the Flash 7 player displays text and outlines (among other things). To avoid issues with custom upgrade messages, you should use device fonts, and either remove outlines from objects, or set them to 'hairline'. There may be other issues to avoid, so if you have issues with items not showing up in older Flash player versions, try simplifying the objects.

2-09-2006
[fixed] bug in the getHTML method - the closing <object> tag wasn't being appended unless you passed in at least 1 flashvar, and fixed some closing slashes on the param tags.

1-25-2006
[fixed] Found a small bug in this latest version that caused the Flash movie to not load on IE 5.01 on PC. The bug has been fixed and the zip/source has been updated. Please update to the latest version if you are using 1.3 and have a lot of users using IE 5.01 (does anyone have a high number of those anymore?). The new version number is 1.3b.

1-18-2006
[fixed] Bug that would keep users with Flash Player 6 installed from using ExpressInstall

1-12-2006
[Changed] When calling FlashObject.write() you can now pass an HTMLElement reference. Previously you needed to pass a string (the Id of the element to write the Flash content to)

[Changed] Made changes to the plugin detection routine that would cause a crash in browsers running certain versions of the Flash plugin. Read a comprehensive description of the issue and the fix.

[New] You may now specify a specific URL to redirect the user to after they complete an ExpressInstall process. Previously the script would always redirect them to the page the Flash movie was embedded in, but when using a popup window this is not always the best solution. See the ExpressInstall section of the FlashObject page for more information.

[New] FlashObject now integrates seamlessly with the Javascript Integration Kit. More information on this is forthcoming in a new blog post.

[New] I’ve used Dojo Shrinksafe to strip out the extra space in the flashobject.js file. FlashObject now weighs in at just a hair over 6kb. Super tiny! The FlashObject ’source code’ (un-shunken Javascript) is included in the FlashObject zip file in the ’source’ folder. I also made a number of small syntax changes to reduce the size even more.


8-1-2005
-fixed bug in detection that caused redirection to fail and threw an error if no flash player was installed
-updated IE detection code - no more VBscript at all, and no more loop to check the version installed.


7-22-2005: 
-added minor version and revision detection
-fixed a few small bugs (one would have caused flashobject to fail once a user tries to detect a flash player version larger than 9)
-rewrote so it's all in it's own namespace (Thanks to Toby Boudreaux for the excellent code tips http://www.tobyjoe.com/)
- *** note that FlashObject.write() now requires an element ID - it will no longer work with no id specified
- *** please note that there is no more bypass text or altTxt variables, you should place your alternate content in a div, and then have FlashObject write to that div, thereby replacing the alternate content.

permanent home of flashobject: http://blog.deconcept.com/flashobject/

5-17-2005: changed the 'id' attribute on the embed tag to 'name' instead. This
change enables the use of features that require liveconnect or other javascript 
communication in browsers that use the embed tag. (later changed so the embed tag has both id and name)

3-31-2005: 1.1 update, multiple changes, mostly some code optimization and some 
changes in how the script displays alt content. see:
http://blog.deconcept.com/2005/03/31/proper-flash-embedding-flashobject-best-practices/