Re: Browser detection script

[John Dowdell]

At 5:23 AM 3/9/98, Kelly, Derek wrote:

>I was also told by a totally unreliable source that Javascript cannot

>detect the Flash plug-in in Explorer.


That's true. Microsoft browsers do not have the navigator.plugins array,

and so cannot tell you their Netscape plugins. (This is why Aftershock will

err on the side of caution and generally present GIF animations for

IE4/Mac.)


Many of the Microsoft/Win32 browsers do offer a way to tell your page about

the ActiveX Controls they have installed, however. This uses VBScript

rather than JavaScript, and requires VBScript 2.0 or greater (in practice,

IE302/Win32 or greater).


Now, unfortunately, IE4/Mac barfs on Microsoft's VBScript, so you'll need

to protect one of Microsoft's browsers from one of Microsoft's

technologies.  (This is why the new Aftershock 2.0 beta, for both Director

and Flash, uses document.writes on its VBScript block.)



Here's the hard part of browser detection: the various browsers have

different abilities, and the various designs have different goals. That's

why you'll see various browser-detection schemes in John Croteau's

wonderful resource, in the technotes, in Aftershock or Smart Shockwave or

ShockRave, and in the other routines that people use. Different routines

have different goals.


But yes, the Microsoft browsers cannot tell JavaScript their multimedia

capabilities, and many MS browsers can tell VBScript whether they have an

ActiveX Control. But once IE/Win32 browsers see an object tag, they'll

start to download it automatically.



No real help, I know, but I hope the context at least is of a bit of use....


jd





John Dowdell, Macromedia Tech Support, San Francisco CA US


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