Posts Tagged ‘Internet Explorer’

Valid Flash Embed and Preloaders Episode V: Internet Explorer Strikes Back

If you saw my previous post on valid Flash embed while maintaining preload functionality and used it, be warned: when the user does not have Flash, a lovely <![endif]--> will appear in IE where the Flash movie would normally be. The only way around it I’ve found is to actually duplicate everything from the opening object tag to the closing one so there is one each for IE and Firefox. For example:

<!--[if !IE]>-->
<object data="movie.swf" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="725" height="235">
	<param name="movie" value="movie.swf" />
</object>
<!--<![endif]-->
<!--[if IE]>
<object classid="clsid:D27CDB6E-AE6D-11cf-96B8-444553540000" width="725" height="235">
	<param name="movie" value="movie.swf" />
</object>
<![endif]-->

Definitely a pain, but I’ve found no other way around it.

Also in my search for a solution, I discovered that our old pal Internet Explorer does not let you append anything but param elements to object elements in Javascript. That was pretty frustrating. Don’t try that. It doesn’t work.

—Kyle Blizzard

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The Pesky iframe and XHTML Strict

Update: Example code updated. It used the shortened form of iframe before, as in <iframe />. That doesn’t sit well with IE. It now uses <iframe></iframe> which works. The same goes for object. It similarly does not play well with Firefox 4 (perhaps even lower versions) in shortened form.

If you’ve done much web work before, you’ve probably, at some time or another, had to use an iframe. It’s not pretty, but sometimes it’s the only choice, such as embedding a widget from another site or displaying things such as real estate listings. One of my biggest problems with it is that it doesn’t exist in the spec for XHTML Strict! It exists in Transitional, but I don’t like to use it. That may be good enough for some developers, but certainly not for me. How about you?

In Internet Explorer 8 (and possibly IE7, but I have not tested it) and Firefox, you can use the object element to embed a web page just like an iframe; however, IE gives it a thick, lovely border that seems impossible to remove. Here’s the trick: employing IE’s conditional comments, use an iframe for IE and an object for everything else. Here’s an example:

<!--[if !IE]><!--><object data="http://www.blizzarddigital.com/blog/" type="text/html" width="320" height="240"></object>
	<!--<![endif]-->
<!--[if IE]><iframe frameborder="0" src="http://www.blizzarddigital.com/blog/" width="320" height="240"></iframe>
	<![endif]-->

Valid XHTML Strict! Make sure to keep your settings the same across both elements to keep it consistent.

Happy coding!

—Kyle Blizzard

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Valid Flash Embed and Preloaders in Internet Explorer

Hello once again, web friends. Today I bring tidings of Flash preloaders and validity.

You may have noticed that with the embed code from my YouTube article that Flash movie preloaders don’t work in Internet Explorer, and the movie has to load entirely before it even displays at all. This is because Internet Explorer requires a different attribute and the removal of another in the object tag to let preloaders work properly. However, with different attributes, the Flash movie will not display at all in Firefox, so we must use Internet Explorer’s conditional comments to utilize two different opening object tags. Behold:

<!--[if !IE]>--><object data="yourmovie.swf" type="application/x-shockwave-flash"
	width="320" height="240"><!--<![endif]-->
<!--[if IE]><object classid="clsid:D27CDB6E-AE6D-11cf-96B8-444553540000"
	width="320" height="240"><![endif]-->
	<param name="movie" value="yourmovie.swf" />
	<param name="quality" value="high" />
</object>

The first line is the original that works in both IE and Firefox but doesn’t allow preloaders in IE. The second is the IE-only method that works with preloaders. Note the lack of a data attribute and the addition of a classid attribute.

Well, there you have it. Venture forth and embed Flash validly with preload animations!

—Kyle Blizzard

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