RE: FLASH: Flash (javascript "OT") Question

[Eric Dunham]

If I'm not mistaken, you should have to have to detect browser types to open

windows. I believe that NN and IE both use the same syntax for the

window.open() statement. Additionally, you shouldn't need to use the

'window' object if you're calling the script from within a simple set of

<script> tags in your document. In other words you shouldn't have to use

window.open(), you should just be able to use open().


Another word of advice when doing browser detection...don't use

navigator.appName because a lot of people, like myself, have changed the

code/response in our browsers to say something other than MSIE or Netscape

(mine says "Whatever"). A more reliable (and easily maintainable) method is

to use object detection. Let me explain...instead of using navigator.appName

== "MSIE" you could use if(document.all), and for NN you could use

document.layers. I don't really mean to get into a long rant on this, but I

think I might anyway, for the sake of explanation.


You see, for layers (<div> tags and such) IE uses the document.all object to

refer to them, and NN uses the document.layers object, so that becomes a

very easy way to differentiate browser classes instead of sniffing out the

appName. Furthermore, there are different browsers out there besides NN and

IE that might support the same object hierarchies that NN/IE do. For

example...NeoPlanet(I'm not sure if that changes the appName, though),

Opera, iCab, etc etc. And where X browser might support the same set of

objects that Y browser does, do you really want to have to sniff out each

and every .appName that's out there? I didn't think so.


Aside from the .appName issue, a lot of people also use scripts that are

dependent upon versions of the different browser platforms that are out

there (I'm sure you've seen the parseInt(navigator.appVersion) code

somewhere out there :) So, not only does using object detection eliminate

that (ie. testing for document.all will encompass both IE4x/IE5x) tedious

coding, it also allows for forwards compatibility. If you did have a

detection script that needed to be able to detect .appVersion to point the

user to an appropriate page (based on version for JS/CSS compatibility,

etc.) what happens when someone comes in using IE5.5 Beta, or if they have

(successfully :P compiled the Mozilla source code? Both of those browsers

should be more than capable of displaying whatever script you throw at them,

but when you detect .appVersion and it doesn't match your code, do you just

shunt them off to a text-only page because you accidentally thought they

were using Lynx? I didn't think so again either.


So all in all, I've found it less frutrating to test for objects rather than

.appName/.appVersion because IMO it's more reliable and it's not near as

tedious. As an example:

<code>

//The following sets up boolean variables

//based on object detection (or lack thereof).

//I have used nn for Netscape (the major browser supporting

document.layers),

//ie for Internet Explorer (the major browser supporting document.all)

//and ot_JS for other browsers (Java-Enabled)

//keep in mind that you should be able to use the navigator.javaEnabled()

//method on NN and IE as well.

//I haven't tried to see what the result is if you turn off JS manually

//but you can :)

//Anyway...

nn = (document.layers)? true:false;

ie = (document.all)? true:false;

if (!ie && !nn) ot_JS = navigator.javaEnabled();

</code>

It's a very simple bit of code (and I know that there are more comments than

code :)

And now you have boolean variables that hold true or false values based on

the objects/methods that were supported by the browser.

If you want to put that inside some <script> tags, you might also try using

document.write() or alert() statements so that you can see the values of the

variables. Have fun!


HTH,

Eric Dunham


<snip>

Just a quick javascript question (from the jscript challenged) as related to

a browser sniffer displaying fullscreen swf files.

While recognizing which browser is which. I want to open a full screen .swf.


So if I use:


  if (navigator.appName=="Microsoft Internet Explorer")

  {

   window.open("my.swf","screen","fullscreen=yes");

  }


And it works great. What do I use for NN?


{

 if (navigator.appName=="Netscape")

  {

  what.the("heck goes here?")

}

</snip>



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