Simple IE ActiveX workaround experiences
There are relatively few sites on campus that use Flash but they are starting to show up more and more. CPA has a couple pages and I want to make sure the Flash ran smoothly with IE 7 and soon IE 6 when the security update is applied. Basically because Microsoft lost to Eolas over the plug-in patent they have made some changes which means Flash or other embeded objects need to be activated by the user before anything is loaded. It’s fun, really it is.
Techniques out there
There are a number of techniques out there which has made deciding on which one to use confusing. Microsoft, Adobe, and there are some nice standards friendly ideas floating around along with the unobtrusive flash objects. This is by no means an exhaustive list either… but the one I like is posted on Beakdal.com and created by Jason Baker. It’s called the activateActiveX and all it requires is that you include some JS in your head. Check out the site for the details on how it works.
A gotcha if you use the head version of activateActiveX: onload
Using this simple fix I ran into a problem. If you are using nifty corners you can’t use the head version… it appears the onload in both scripts conflicts with each other (guessing you need to be careful with multiple onload usage in DOM scripting). Not being a js guy I don’t want to try and figure out exactly why, I just want a way to make this work. It didn’t take me too long to figure out I need to use the version for the footer—I really hate calling in my js in the footer but it works. I likely would have figured this out sooner if I read the site properly and wasn’t so stubborn with the footer.
In the future…
Why did I use this fix? Because I can add a call to my include for my scripts and that is all… no having to find each page with Flash and fix it. This is so simple I don’t see why I wouldn’t use it. In the future something like UFO over the default Dreamweaver code might be attractive although it appears accessibility wise the method used by Dreamweaver 8 might still be ideal even though it triggers a validation error.
Update: It appears April 11th (today) is the day it starts, Flash sites be ready!