Re: FLASH: My Apologizes and a Flash-VRML-IE question

[John Dowdell]

At 10:00 AM 10/15/98, Gorka Cort�zar wrote:

> Another question... Its posible control the CosmoPlayer

> via JavaScript calling a function from Flash???


At least in some cases, yes, at least theoretically. Here's the background:


SGI's CosmoPlayer for VRML 2.0 worlds, recently transferred to Platinum

Technologies (http://www.platinum.com/), was able to be driven by Java

applets through their External Authoring Interface (EAI). In the Netscape

browser Java->plugin communication was handled by LiveConnect, which is the

same mechanism used for JavaScript<->plugin intercommunication. Therefore,

the Cosmo plugin should be open to JavaScript control, just like the Flash

plugin is.


That said, there's been little documentation on JavaScript control of VRML

worlds in the Cosmo player. Over the last three years most VRML control was

documented through applets rather than through pages. Most of the

plugin->browser communication has been handled by the "javascript:"

protocol URL, rather than direct calls such as Flash's FSCommand or

Shockwave's externalEvent. "Javascript:" protocol URLs from objects are

supported by some-but-not-all browsers.


Additionally, the Microsoft browsers, even for Win32, do not offer the same

range of support for Java intercommunication with objects. After visiting

Platinum's pages I notice that there's now a COM interface for the Cosmo

ActiveX Control. I would hope that this presents an integrated

cross-browser interface for such object/page intercommunication, but I have

not gone through their documentation yet.


Summary: You can script the page to have two Flash objects talk to each

other in a page. Other browser extensions should be able to do this too.

Their ability to do so depends on how deeply they implement object/page

intercommunication. The Platinum website is now the place to get developer

information on the Cosmo player. It seems promising, but I've not

implemented such a dual-plugin page with Cosmo 2.1 yet, myself.



(I couldn't catch the question in the ASP/IIS/ActiveX/Flash/VRML issue, sorry.)


jd






John Dowdell, Macromedia Tech Support, San Francisco CA US


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